Bourne Shell Scripting PDF

Bourne Shell Scripting
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July 12, 2015
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Contents
1 Comparing Shells 3
1.1 Bourne shell and other Unix command shells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Why Bourne Shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Running Commands 7
2.1 The easy way: the interactive session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 The only slightly less easy way: the script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 A little bit about Unix and multiprocessing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3 Environment 15
3.1 The Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2 Multitasking and job control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4 Variable Expansion 39
4.1 Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Substitution forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5 Control flow 45
5.1 Control Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2 Command execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6 Files and streams 67

6.1 The Unix world: one file after another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.2 Streams: what goes between files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.3 Redirecting: using streams in the shell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6.4 Here documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
7 Modularization 81
7.1 Named functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.2 Creating a named function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
8 Debugging and signal handling 87

8.1 Debugging Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.2 Breaking out of a script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8.3 Signal trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
9 Cookbook 103
9.1 Branch on extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
9.2 Rename several files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
9.3 Long command line options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
9.4 Process certain files through xargs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
III
Contents
9.5 Simple playlist frontend for GStreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
10 Quick Reference 109

10.1 Useful commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
10.2 Elementary shell capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
10.3 IF statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
10.4 CASE statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.5 Loop statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10.6 Credit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
11 Command Reference 115
12 Environment reference 119
13 Contributors 121
List of Figures 123
14 Licenses 127
14.1 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
14.2 GNU Free Documentation License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
14.3 GNU Lesser General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
1
1 Comparing Shells
Almost all books like this one have a section on (or very similar to) ”why you should use the
shell/program flavor/language/etc. discussed in this book and not any of the others that
perform the same tasks in a slightly different way”. It seems to be pretty well mandatory.
However, this book will not do that. We’ll talk a bit about ”why Bourne Shell” of course.
But you’ll soon see that doesn’t preclude other shells at all. And there’s no good reason
not to use another shell either, as we will explain a little further down.
1.1 Bourne shell and other Unix command shells
There are many Unix command shells available today. Bourne Shell is just one drop in a
very large ocean. How do all these shells relate? Do they do the same things? Is one better
than the other? Let’s take a look at what makes a shell and what that means for all the
different shells out there.
1.1.1 How it all got started...
The Unix operating system has had a unique outlook on the world ever since it was created
back in the 1970s. It stands apart from most other operating systems in that its focus has
always been towards power users : people who want to squeeze every drop of performance
out of their system and have the technical knowledge to do so. Unix was designed to be
programmed and modified to the desires of the user. At its core, Unix does not have a user
interface; instead it is comprised of a stable OS kernel and a versatile C library. If you’re
not trying to do actual hard-core programming but rather are trying to do day-to-day tasks
(or even just want to put a little program together quickly), pure Unix is a tremendous pain
in the backside.
In other words, it was clear from the start that a tool would be needed that would allow
a user to make use of the functions offered him by the coding library and kernel without
actually doing serious programming work. A tool in other words that could pass small
commands on to the lower-level system quickly and easily. Without the need for a compiler
or other fancy editor, but with the ability to tap into the enormous power of the underlying
system. Stephen Bourne set himself to the task and came up with what he called a shell :
a small, on-the-fly compiler that could take one command at a time, translate it into the
sequence of bits understood by the machine and have that command carried out. We now
call this type of program an interpreter1 , but at the time, the term ”shell” was much more
common (since it was a shell over the underlying system for the user). Stephen’s shell was
1 http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interpreter
3
Comparing Shells
slim, fast, and though a bit unwieldy at times, its power is still the envy of many current
operating system command-line interfaces today. Since it was designed by Stephen Bourne,
this shell is called the Bourne Shell. The executable is simply called sh and use of this shell
in scripting is still so ubiquitous, there isn’t a Unix-based system on this earth that doesn’t
offer a shell whose executable can be reached under the name sh.
1.1.2 ...And how it ended up
Of course, everyone’s a critic. The Bourne Shell saw tremendous use (indeed, it still does)
and as a result, it became the de facto standard among Unix shells. But all sorts of people
almost immediately (as well as with use) wanted new features in the shell, or a more familiar
way of expressing commands, or something else. Many people built new shells that they
felt continued where Bourne Shell ended. Some were completely compatible with Bourne
Shell, others were less so. Some became famous, others flopped. But pretty much all of
them look fondly upon Bourne Shell, the shell they call ”Dad...”
A number of these shells can be run in sh-like mode, to more closely emulate that very first
sh, though most people tend just to run their shells in the default mode, which provides
more power than the minimum sh.
1.1.3 It’s Bourne Shell, but not as we know it....
So there are a lot of shells around but you can find Bourne Shell everywhere, right? Good
old sh , just sitting there faithfully until the end of time....
Well, no, not really. Most of the sh exectuables out there nowadays aren’t really the
Bourne Shell anymore. Through a bit of Unix magic called a link (which allows one file to
masquerade as another) the sh executable you find on any Unix system is likely actually to
be one of the shells that is based on the Bourne shell. One of the most frequently used shells
nowadays (with the ascent of free and open-source operating systems like GNU and Linux)
is a heavily extended form of the Bourne Shell produced by the Free Software Foundation,
called Bash2 . Bash hasn’t forgotten its roots, though: it stands for the B ourne A gain SH
ell.
Another example of a descendant shell standing in for its ancestor is the Korn Shell (ksh).
Also an extension shell, it is completely compatible with sh -- it simply adds some features.
Much the same is true for zsh.
Finally, a slightly different category is formed by the C Shell (csh) and its descendant tcsh,
native on BSD systems. These shells do break compatibility to some extent, using different
syntax for many commands. Systems that use these shells as standard shells often provide
a real Bourne Shell executable to run generic Bourne Shell scripts.
Having read the above, you will understand why this book doesn’t have to convince you to
use Bourne Shell instead of any other shell: in most cases, there’s no noticeable difference.
Bourne Shell and its legacy have become so ingrained in the heart and soul of the Unix
2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash%20%28Unix%20shell%29
4
Why Bourne Shell
environment that you are using Bourne Shell when you are using practically any shell
available to you.
1.2 Why Bourne Shell
So only one real question remains: now that you find yourself on your own, cozy slice of
a Unix system, with your own shell and all its capabilities, is there any real reason to use
Bourne Shell rather than using the whole range of your shell’s capabilities?
Well, it depends. Probably, there isn’t. For the most part of course, you are using Bourne
Shell by using the whole potential of your shell -- your shell is probably that similar to the
Bourne Shell. But there is one thing you might want to keep in mind: someday, you might
want to write a script that you might want to pass around to other people. Of course you
can write your script using the full range of options that your shell offers you; but then it
might not work on another machine with another shell. This is where the role of Bourne
Shell as the Latin of Unix command shells comes in -- and also where it is useful to know
how to write scripts targeted specifically at the Bourne Shell. If you write your scripts for
the Bourne Shell and nothing but the Bourne Shell, chances are far better than equal that
your script will run straight out of the mail attachment (don’t tell me you’re still using
boxes to ship things -- come on, get with the program) on any command shell out there.
5
2 Running Commands
Before we can start any kind of examination of the abilities of the Bourne Shell and how
you can tap into its power, we have to cover some basic ground first: we have to discuss
how to enter commands into the shell for execution by that shell.
2.1 The easy way: the interactive session
2.1.1 Taking another look at what you’ve probably already seen
If you have access to a Unix-based machine (or an emulator on another operating system),
you’ve probably been using the Bourne Shell -- or one of its descendants -- already, possibly
without realising. Surprise: you’ve been doing shell scripting for a while already!
In your Unix environment, go to a terminal; either a textual logon terminal, or a terminal-
in-a-window if you’re using the X Window System (look for something called xterm or rxvt
or just terminal , if you have actually not ever done this yet). You’ll probably end up
looking at a screen looking something like this:
Ben_Tels:Local_Machine:˜>_
or
The admin says: everybody, STOP TRYING TO CRASH THE SYSTEM

Have a lot of fun!
bzt:Another_Machine:˜>_
or even something as simple as
$_
That’s it. That’s your shell: your direct access to everything the system has to offer.
2.1.2 Using the shell in interactive mode
Specifically, the program you accessed a moment ago is your shell, running in interactive
mode : the shell is running in such a way that it displays a prompt and a cursor (the little,
blinking line) and is waiting for you to enter a command for it to execute. You execute
commands in interactive mode by typing them in, followed by a press of the Enter key.
7
Running Commands
The shell then translates your command to something the operating system understands
and passes off control to the operating system so that it can actually carry out the task you
have sent it. You’ll notice that your cursor will disappear momentarily while the command
is being carried out, and you cannot type anymore (at this point, the Bourne Shell program
is no longer in control of your terminal -- the other program that you started by executing
your command is). At some point the operating system will be finished working on your
command and the shell will bring up a new prompt and the cursor as well and will then
start waiting again for you to enter another command. Give it a try: type the command
ls enter
After a short time, you’ll see a list of files in the working directory (the directory that your
shell considers the ”current” directory), a new prompt and the cursor.
This is the simplest way of executing shell commands: typing them in one at a time and
waiting for each to complete in order. The shell is used in this way very often, both to
execute commands that belong to the Bourne Shell programming language and simply to
start running other programs (like the ls program from the example above).
2.1.3 A useful tidbit
Before we move on, we’ll mention two useful key combinations when using the shell: the
command to interrupt running programs and shell commands and the command to quit the
shell (although, why you would ever want to stop using the shell is beyond me....).
To interrupt a running program or shell command, hit the Control and C keys at the same
time. We’ll get back to what this does exactly in a later chapter, but for now just remember
this is the way to interrupt things.
To quit the shell session, hit Control+d. This key combination produces the Unix end-of-file
character -- we’ll talk more later about why this also terminates your shell session. Some
modern shells have disabled the use of Control+d in favor of the ”exit” command (shame on
them). If you’re using such a shell, just type the word ”exit” (like with any other command)
and press Enter (from here on in, I’ll leave the ”Enter” out of examples).
2.2 The only slightly less easy way: the script
As we saw in the last section, you can very easily execute shell commands for all purposes by
starting an interactive shell session and typing your commands in at the prompt. However,
sometimes you have a set of commands that you have to repeat regularly, even at different
times and in different shell sessions. Of course, in the programming-centric environment
of a Unix system, you can write a program to get the same result (in the C language for
instance). But wouldn’t it be a lot easier to have the convenience of the shell for this same
task? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to have a way to replay a set of commands? And to
be able to compose that set as easily as you can write the single commands that you type
into the shell’s interactive sessions?
8
The only slightly less easy way: the script
2.2.1 The shell script
Fortunately, there is such a way: the Bourne Shell’s non-interactive mode. In this mode, the
shell doesn’t have a prompt or wait for your commands. Instead, the shell reads commands
from a text file (which tells the shell what to do, kind of like an actor gets commands from
a script -- hence, shell script). This file contains a sequence of commands, just as you would
enter them into the interactive session at the prompt. The file is read by the shell from top
to bottom and commands are executed in that order.
A shell script is very easy to write; you can use any text-editor you like (or even any
wordprocessor or other editor, as long as you remember to save your script in plain text
format). You write commands just as you would in the interactive shell. And you can run
your script the moment you have saved it; no need to compile it or anything.
2.2.2 Running a shell script
To run a shell script (to have the shell read it and execute all the commands in the script),
you enter a command at an interactive shell prompt as you would when doing anything else
(if you’re using a graphical user interface, you can probably also execute your scripts with a
click of the mouse). In this case, the program you want to start is the shell program itself.
For instance, to run a script called MyScript , you’d enter this command in the interactive
shell (assuming the script is in your working directory):
Running a script
sh MyScript
Starting the shell program from inside the shell program may sound weird at first, but
it makes perfect sense if you think about it. After all, you’re typing commands in an
interactive mode shell session. To run a script, you want to start a shell in non-interactive
mode . That’s what’s happening in the above command. You’ll note that the Bourne Shell
executable takes a single parameter in the example above: the name of the script to execute.
If you happen to be using a POSIX 1003.1-compliant shell, you can also execute a single
command in this new, non-interactive session. You have to use the -c command-line switch
to tell the shell you’re passing in a command instead of the name of a script:
Running a command in a new shell
sh -c ls
We’ll get to why you would want to do this (rather than simply enter your command directly
into the interactive shell) a little further down.
9
Running Commands
There is also another way to run a script from the interactive shell: you type the execute
command (a single period) followed by the name of the script:
Sourcing a script
. MyScript
The difference between that and using the sh command is that the sh command starts a
new process and the execute command does not. We’ll look into this (and its importance)
in the next section. By the way, this notation with the period is commonly referred to as
sourcing a script.
2.2.3 Running a shell script the other way
There is also another way to execute a shell script, by making more direct use of a feature
of the Unix operating system: the executable mode.
In Unix, each and every file has three different permissions (read, write and execute) that
can be set for three different entities: the user who owns the file, the group that the file
belongs to and ”the world” (everybody else). Give the command
Code
-l
in the interactive shell to see the permissions for all files in the working directory (the
column with up to nine letters, r, w and x for read write and execute, the first three for the
user, the middle ones for the group, the right ones for the world). Whenever one of those
entities has the ”execute” permission, that entity can simply run the file as a program. To
make your scripts executable by everybody, use the command
Code
chmod +x scriptname
as in
Making MyScript executable
chmod +x MyScript
You can then execute the script with a simple command like so (assuming it is in a directory
that is in your PATH, the directories that the shell looks in for programs when you don’t
tell it exactly where to find the program):
10
The only slightly less easy way: the script
Running a command in a new shell
MyScript
If this fails then the current directory is probably not in your PATH. You can force the
execution of the script using
Making the shell look for your script in the current directory
./MyScript
At this command, the operating system examines the file, places it in memory and allows
it to run like any other program. Of course, not every file makes sense as a program; a
binary file is not necessarily a set of commands that the computer will recognize and a text
file cannot be read by a computer at all. So to make our scripts run like this, we have to
do something extra.
As we mentioned before, the Unix operating system starts by examining the program. If
the program is a text file rather than a binary one (and cannot simply be executed), the
operating system expects the first line of the file to name the interpreter that the operating
system should start to interpret the rest of the file. The line the Unix operating system
expects to find looks like this:
Code
#!full path and name of interpreter
In our case, the following line should work pretty much everywhere:
Code
#!/bin/sh
The Bourne Shell executable, to be found in the bin directory, which is right under the top
of the filesystem tree. For example:
Bourne shell script with an explicit interpreter
Code
#!/bin/sh
echo Hello World!
Output
World!
Executing shell scripts like this has several advantages. First it’s less cumbersome than
the other notations (it requires less typing). Second, it’s an extra safety if you’re going to
pass your scripts around to others. Instead of relying on them to have the right shell, you
can simply specify which shell they should use. If Bourne Shell is enough, that’s what you
11
Running Commands
ask for. If you absolutely need ksh or bash , you specify that instead (mind you, it’s not
foolproof — other people can ignore your interpreter specification by running your script
with one of the other commands that we discussed above, even if the script probably won’t
work if they do that).
Just as a sidenote, Unix doesn’t limit this trick to shell scripts. Any script interpreter that
expects its scripts to be plain-text can be specified in this way. You can use this same trick
to make directly executable Perl scripts or Python, Ruby, etc. scripts as well as Bourne
Shell scripts.
Note also that with the distributions using bash as their defaut shell, you can use the
#!/bin/sh shebang and have typical bash syntax in your script. It will work. But for the
same script to work with a distribution not using bash as its default shell (as example
Debian), you will have to modify the script or to change its shebang to #!/bin/bash.
2.3 A little bit about Unix and multiprocessing
2.3.1 Why you want to know about multiprocessing
While this is not directly a book about Unix, there are some aspects of the Unix operating
system that we must cover to fully understand why the Bourne Shell works the way it does
from time to time.
One of the most important aspects of the Unix operating system − in fact, the main
aspect that sets it apart from all other main-stream operating systems − is that the Unix
Operating System is and always has been a multi-user, multi-processing operating system
(this in contrast with other operating systems like MacOS and Microsoft’s DOS/Windows
operating systems). The Unix OS was always meant to run machines that would be used
simultaneously by several users, who would all want to run at least one but possibly several
programs at the same time. The ability of an operating system to divide the time of a
machine’s processor among several programs so that it seems to the user that they are
all running at the same time is called multiprocessing . The Unix Operating System was
designed from the core up with this possibility in mind and it has an effect on the way your
shell sessions behave.
Whenever you start a new process (by running a program, for instance) on your Unix ma-
chine, the operating system provides that process with its very own operating environment.
That environment includes some memory for the process to play in and it can also include
certain predefined settings for all processes. Whenever you run the shell program, it is
running in its own environment.
Whenever you start a new process from another process (for instance by issuing a command
to your shell program in interactive mode), the new process becomes what is called a child
process of the first process (the ls program runs as a child process of your shell, for instance).
This is where it becomes important to know about multiprocessing and process interaction:
a child process always starts with a copy of the environment of the parent process. This
means two things:
12
A little bit about Unix and multiprocessing
1. A child process can never make changes to the operating environment of its parent—it
only has access to a copy of that environment;
2. If you actually do want to make changes in the environment of your shell (or specifically
want to avoid it), you have to know when a command runs as a child process and
when it runs within your current shell; you might otherwise pick a variant that has
the opposite effect of that which you want.
2.3.2 What does what
We have seen several ways of running a shell command or script. With respect to multi-
processing, they run in the following way:
Way of running Runs as

Interactive mode command
• current environment for a shell command [Re-
mark_0])
• child process for a new program
Shell non-interactive mode child process

Dot-notation run command (. MyScript ) current environment
Through Unix executable permission with interpreter child process
selection
2.3.3 A useful thing to know: background processes
With the above, it may seem like multiprocessing is just a pain when doing shell scripting.
But if that were so, we wouldn’t have multiprocessing—Unix doesn’t tend to keep things
that aren’t useful. Multiprocessing is a valuable tool in interacting with the rest of the
system and one that you can use to work more efficiently. There are many books available
on the benefits of multiprocessing in program development, but from the point of view of
the Bourne Shell user and scripter the main one is the ability to hand off control of a process
to the operating system and still keep on working while that child process is running . The
way to do this is to run your process as a background process .
Running a process as a background process means telling the operating system that you
want to start a process, but that it should not attach itself to any of the interactive devices
(keyboard, screen, etc.) that its parent process is using. And more than that, it also tells
the operating system that the request to start this child process should return immediately
and that the parent process should then be allowed to continue working without having to
wait for its child process to end.
This sounds complicated, but you have to keep in mind that this ability is completely
ingrained in the Unix operating system and that the Bourne Shell was intended as an easy
interface to the power of Unix. In other words: the Bourne Shell includes the ability to
start a child process as a simple command of its own. Let’s demonstrate how to do this
and how useful the ability is at the same time, with an example. Give the following (rather
pointless but still time consuming) command at the prompt:
N=0 && while [ $N -lt 10000 ]; do date >> scriptout; N=èxpr $N + 1`; done
13
Running Commands
We’ll get into what this says in later chapters; for now, it’s enough to know that this
command asks the system for the date and time and writes the result to a file named
”scriptout”. Since it then repeats this process 10000 times, it may take a little time to
complete.
Now give the following command:
N=0 && while [ $N -lt 10000 ]; do date >> scriptout; N=èxpr $N + 1`;
done&
You’ll notice that you can immediately resume using the shell (if you don’t see this hap-
pening, hit Control+C and check that you have the extra ampersand at the end). After
a while the background process will be finished and the scriptout file will contain another
10000 time reads.
The way to start a background process in Bourne Shell is to append an ampersand (&) to
your command.
Remarks
[Remark_0]Actually, you can force a child process here as well -- we’ll see how when we
talk about command grouping
14
3 Environment
No program is an island unto itself. Not even the Bourne Shell. Each program executes
within an environment , a system of resources that controls how the program executes and
what external connections the program has and can make. And in which the program can
itself make changes.
In this module we discuss the environment, the habitat in which each program and command
lives and executes. We look at what the environment consists of, where it comes from and
where it’s going... And we discuss the most important mechanism that the shell has for
passing data around: the environment variable .
3.1 The Environments
When discussing a Unix shell, you often come across the term ”environment”. This term is
used to describe the context in which a program executes and is usually meant to mean a
set of ”environment variables” (we’ll get to those shortly). But in fact there are two different
terms that are somehow a program’s environment and which often get mixed up together
in ”environment”. The simpler one of these really is the collection of environment variables
and actually is called the ”environment”. The second is a much wider collection of resources
that influence the execution of a program and is called the command execution environment
.
3.1.1 The command execution environment
Each running program, either started directly by the user from the shell or indirectly by
another process, operates within a collection of global resources called its command exe-
cution environment (CEE).
A program’s CEE contains important information such as the source and destination of
data upon which the program can operate (also known as the standard input1 , standard
output2 and standard error3 handles). In addition, variables are defined that list the identity
and home directory of the user or process that started the program, the hostname of the
machine and the kind of terminal used to start the program. There are other variables too,
but that’s just some of the main ones. The environment also provides working space for
the program, as well as a simple way of communicating with other, future programs, that
will be run in the same environment.
1 Chapter 6 on page 67
15
Environment
The complete list of resources included in the shell’s CEE is:

• Open files held in the parent process that started the shell. These files are inherited. This
list of files includes the files accessed through redirection (such as standard input, output
and error files).
• The current working directory: the ”current” directory of the shell.
• The file creation mode:The default set of file permissions set when a new file is created.
• The active traps4 .
• Shell parameters and variables set during the call to the shell or inherited from the parent
process.
• Shell functions5 inherited from the parent process.
• Shell options set by set or shopts , or as command line options to the shell executable.
• Shell aliases (if available in your shell).
• The process id of the shell and of some processes started by the parent process.
Whenever the shell executes a command that starts a child process, that command is
executed it its own CEE. This CEE inherits a copy of part of the CEE of its parent, but
not the entire parent CEE. The inherited copy includes:
• Open files.
• The working directory.
• The file creation mode mask.
• Any shell variables and functions that are marked to be exported to child processes.
• Traps set by the shell.
The ’set’ command
The ’set’ command allows you to set or disable a number of options that are part of the CEE
and influence the behavior of the shell. To set an option, set is called with a command line
argument of ’-’ followed by one or more flags. To disable the option, set is called with ’+’
and then the same flag. You probably won’t use these options very often; the most common
use of ’set’ is the call without any arguments, which produces a list of all defined names
in the environment (variables and functions). Here are some of the options you might get
some use out of:
+/-a
When set, automatically mark all newly created or redefined variables for export.
+/-f
When set, ignore filename metacharacters6 .
+/-n
When set, only read commands but do not execute them.
+/-v
6 Chapter 5.2.4 on page 59
16
The Environments
When set, causes the shell to print commands as they are read from input (verbose de-
bugging flag).
+/-x
When set, causes the shell to print commands as they will be executed (debugging flag).
Again, you’ll probably mostly use set without arguments, to inspect the list of defined
variables.
3.1.2 The environment and environment variables
Part of the CEE is something that is simply called the environment . The environment is
a collection of name/value pairs called environment variables . These variables technically
also contain the shell functions7 , but we’ll discuss those in a separate module8 .
An environment variable is a piece of labelled storage in the environment, where you can
store anything you like as long as it fits. These spaces are called variables because you can
vary what you put in them. All you need to know is the name (the label) that you used for
storing the content. The Bourne shell also makes use of these ”environment variables”. You
can make scripts that examine these variables, and those scripts can make decisions based
on the values stored in the variables.
An environment variable is a name/value pair of the form
Code
name =variable
which is also the way of creating a variable. There are several ways of using a variable
which we will discuss in the module on substitution9 , but for now we will limit ourselves to
the simple way: if you prepend a variable name with a $-character, the shell will substitute
the value for the variable. So, for example:
Simple use of a variable
Code
$ VAR=Hello
$ echo $VAR
Output
As you can see from the example above, an environment variable is sort of like a bulletin
board: anybody can post any kind of value there for everybody to read (as long as they
have access to the board). And whatever is posted there can be interpreted by any reader
9 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bourne%20Shell%20Scripting%2FSubstitution
17
Environment
in whatever way they like. This makes the environment variable a very general mechanism
for passing data along from one place to another. And as a result environment variables
are used for all sorts of things. For instance, for setting global parameters that a program
can use in its execution. Or for setting a value from one shell script to be picked up by
another. There are even a number of environment variables that the shell itself uses in its
configuration. Some typical examples:
IFS
This variable lists the characters that the shell considers to be whitespace characters.
PATH
This variable is interpreted as a list of directories (separated by colons on a Unix system).
Whenever you type the name of an executable for the shell to execute but do not include
the full path of that executable, the shell will look in all of these directories in order to
find the executable.
PS1
This variable lists a set of codes. These codes instruct your shell about what the command-
line prompt in the interactive shell should look like.
PWD
The value of this variable is always the path of the working directory.
The absolute beauty of environment variables, as mentioned above, is that they just contain
random strings of characters without an immediate meaning. The meaning of any variable is
to be interpreted by whatever program or process reads the variable. So a variable can hold
literally any kind of information and be used practically anywhere. For instance, consider
the following example:
Environment variables are more flexible than you thought...
$ echo $CMD
$ CMD=ls
$ echo $CMD
ls
$ $CMD
bin booktemp Documents Mail mbox publich tml sent
There’s nothing wrong with setting a variable to the name of an executable, then executing
that executable by calling the variable as a command.
3.1.3 Different kinds of environment variables
Although you use all environment variables the same way, there are a couple of different
kinds of variables. In this section we discuss the differences between them and their uses.
18
The Environments
Named variables
The simplest and most straightforward environment variable is the named variable. We
saw it earlier: it’s just a name with a value, which can be retrieved by prepending a ’$’ to
the name. You create and define a named variable in one go, by typing the name, an equals
sign and then something that results in a string of characters.
Earlier we saw the following, simple example:
Assigning a simple value to a variable
$ VAR=Hello
This just assigns a simple value. Once a variable has been defined, we can also redefine it:
$ VAR=Goodbye
We aren’t limited to straightforward strings either. We can just as easily assign the value
of one variable to another:
$ VAR=$PATH
We can even go all-out and combine several commands to come up with a value:
Assigning a combined value to a variable
$ PS1= "`whoami`@`hostname -s` `pwd` \$ "
In this case, we’re taking the output of the three commands ’whoami’, ’hostname’, and
’pwd’, then we add the ’$’ symbol, and some spacing and other formatting just to pad
things out a bit. Whew. All that, just in one piece of labeled space. As you can see
environment variables can hold quite a bit, including the output of entire commands.
There are usually lots of named variables defined in your environment, even if you are not
aware of them. Try the ’set’ command and have a look.
19
Environment
Positional variables
Most of the environment variables in the shell are named variables, but there are also a cou-
ple of ”special” variables. Variables that you don’t set, but whose values are automatically
arranged and maintained by the shell. Variables which exist to help you out, to discover
information about the shell or from the environment.
The most common of these are the positional or argument variables. Any command you
execute in the shell (in interactive mode or in a script) can have command-line arguments.
Even if the command doesn’t actually use them, they can still be there. You pass command-
line arguments to a command simply by typing them after the command, like so:
Code
command arg0 arg1 ...
This is allowed for any command. Even your own shell scripts. But say that you do this
(create a shell script, then execute it with arguments); how do you access the command-line
arguments from your script? This is where the positional variables come in. When the
shell executes a command, it automatically assigns any command-line arguments, in order,
to a set of positional variables. And these variables have numbers for names: 1 through
9, accessed through $1 through $9. Well, actually zero though nine; $0 is the name of the
command that was executed. For example, consider a script like this:
WithArgs.sh: A script that uses command-line arguments
!/bin/sh
echo $0
echo $1
echo $2
And a call to this script like this:

Calling the script
Code
$ WithArgs.sh Hello World
Output
WithArgs.sh
Hello
World
As you can see, the shell automatically assigned the values ’Hello’ and ’World’ to $1 and $2
(okay, technically to the variables called 1 and 2, but it’s less confusing in written text to
call them $1 and $2). What happens if we call this script with more than two arguments?
20
The Environments
Calling the script with more arguments

Code
$ WithArgs.sh Hello World Mouse Cheese
Output
WithArgs.sh
Hello
World
This is no problem whatsoever — the extra arguments get assigned to $3 and $4. But
we didn’t use those variables in the script, so those command-line arguments are ignored.
What about the opposite case (too few arguments)?
Calling the script with too few arguments...
Code
$ WithArgs.sh Hello
Output
WithArgs.sh
Hello
Again, no problem. When the script accesses $2, the shell simply substitutes the value of
$2 for $2. That value is nothing in this case, so we print exactly that. In this case it’s not
a problem, but if your script has mandatory arguments you should check whether or not
they are actually there.
What about if we want ’Hello’ and ’World’ to be treated as one command-line argument to
be passed to the script? I.e. ’Hello World’ rather than ’Hello’ and ’World’ ? We’ll get deeply
into that when we start talking about quoting10 , but for now just surround the words with
single quotes:
Calling the script with multi-word arguments
Code
$ WithArgs.sh 'Hello World' 'Mouse Cheese'
Output
21
Environment
WithArgs.sh
Hello World
Mouse Cheese
Shifting
So what happens if you have more than nine command line arguments? Then your script
is too complicated. No, but seriously: then you have a little problem. It’s allowed to pass
more than nine arguments, but there are only nine positional variables (in Bourne Shell at
least). To deal with this situation the shell includes the shift command:
Code
shift [n] n is optional and a positive integer (default 1)
Shift causes the positional arguments to shift left. That is, the value of $1 becomes the old
value of $2, the value of $2 becomes the old value of $3 and so on. Using shift , you can
access all the command-line arguments (even if there are more than nine). The optional
integer argument to shift is the number of positions to shift (so you can shift as many
positions in one go as you like). There are a couple of things to keep in mind though:
• No matter how often you shift, $0 always remains the original command.
• If you shift n positions, n must be lower than the number of arguments. If n is greater
than the number of arguments, no shifting occurs.
• If you shift n positions, the first n arguments are lost. So make sure you have them stored
elsewhere or you don’t need them anymore!
• You cannot shift back to the right.
In the module on Control flow11 we’ll see how you can go through all the arguments without
knowing exactly how many there are.
Other, special variables
In addition to the positional variables the Bourne Shell includes a number of other, special
variables with special information about the shell. You’ll probably not use these as often,
but it’s good to know they’re there. These variables are
$#
The number of command-line arguments to the current command (changes after a use of
the shift command!).
$-
The shell options currently in effect (see the ’set’ command12 ).
$?

22
The Environments
The exit status of the last command executed (0 if it succeeded, non-zero if there was an
error).
$$
The process id of the current process.
$!
The process id of the last background command.
$*
All the command-line arguments. When quoted13 , expands to all command-line arguments
as a single word (i.e. ”$*” = ”$1 $2 $3 ...”).
$@
All the command-line arguments. When quoted14 , expands to all command-line arguments
quoted individually (i.e. ”$@” = ”$1” ”$2” ”$3” ...).
3.1.4 Exporting variables to a subprocess
We’ve mentioned it a couple of times before: Unix is a multi-user, multiprocessing operating

system. And that fact is very much supported by the Bourne Shell, which allows you to
start up new processes right from inside a running shell. In fact, you can even run multiple
processes simultaneously next to each other (but we’ll get to that a little later). Here’s a
simple example of starting a subprocess:
Starting a new shell from the shell
$ sh
We’ve also talked about the Command Execution Environment and the Environment (the
latter being a collection of variables). These environments can affect how programs run, so
it’s very important that they cannot inadvertently affect one another. After all, you wouldn’t
want the screen in your shell to go blue with yellow letters simply because somebody started
Midnight Commander in another process, right?
One of the things that the shell does to avoid processes inadvertently affecting one another,
is environment separation. Basically this means that whenever a new (sub)process is started,
it has its own CEE and environment. Of course it would be damned inconvenient if the
environment of a subprocess of your shell were completely empty; your subprocess wouldn’t
have a PATH variable or the settings you chose for the format of your prompt. On the
other hand there is usually a good reason NOT to have certain variables in the environment
of your subprocess, and it usually has something to do with not handing off too much
environment data to a process if it doesn’t need that data. This was particularly true

23
Environment
when running copies of MS-DOS and versions of DOS under Windows. You only HAD a
limited amount of environment space, so you had to use it carefully, or ask for more space
on startup. These days in a UNIX environment the space issues aren’t the same, but if
all your existing variables ended up in the environment of your subprocess you might still
adversely affect the running of the program that you started in that subprocess (there’s
really something to be said for keeping your environment lean and clean in the case of
subprocesses).
The compromise between the two extremes that Stephen Bourne and others came up with
is this: a subprocess has an environment which contains copies of the variables in the
environment of its parent process — but only those variables that are marked to be exported
(i.e. copied to subprocesses). In other words, you can have any variable copied into the
environment of your subprocesses, but you have to let the shell know that’s what you want
first. Here’s an example of the distinction:
Exported and non-exported variables
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
$ VAR=value
$ echo $VAR
value
$ sh
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
$ echo $VAR
In the example above, the PATH variable (which is marked for export by default) gets
copied into the environment of the shell that is started within the shell. But the VAR
variable is not marked for export, so the environment of the second shell doesn’t get a copy.
In order to mark a variable for export you use the export command, like so:
Code
export VAR0 [VAR1 VAR2 ...]
As you can see, you can export as many variables as you like in one go. You can also issue
the export command without any arguments, which will print a list of variables in the
environment marked for export. Here’s an example of exporting a variable:
24
The Environments
Exporting a variable
$ VAR=value
$ echo $VAR
value
$ sh
$ echo $VAR
$ exit Quitting the inner shell

$ export VAR This is back in the outer shell
$ sh
$ echo $VAR
value
More modern shells like Korn Shell and Bash have more extended forms of export . A
common extension is to allow for definition and export of a variable in one single command.
Another is to allow you to remove the export marking from a variable. However, Bourne
Shell only supports exporting as explained above.
3.1.5 Your profile
In the previous sections we’ve discussed the runtime environment of every program and
command you run using the shell. We’ve talked about the command execution environment
and at some length about the piece of it simply called ”the environment”, which contains
environment variables. We’ve seen that you can define your own variables and that the
system usually already has quite a lot of variables to start out with.
Here’s a question about those variables that the system starts out with: where do they
come from? Do they descend like manna from heaven? And on a related note: what do
you do if you want to create some variables automatically every time your shell starts? Or
run a program every time you log in?
Those readers who have done some digging around on other operating systems will know
what I’m getting at: there’s usually some way of having a set of commands executed every
time you log in (or every time the system starts at least). In MS-DOS for instance there is a
file called autoexec.bat, which is executed every time the system boots. In older versions of
MS-Windows there was system.ini. The Bourne Shell has something similar: a file in every
user’s home directory called .profile . The $HOME/.profile (HOME is a default variable
whose value is your home directory) file is a shell script like any other, which is executed
automatically right after you login to a new shell session. You can edit the script to have
it execute any login-commands that you like.
Each specific Unix system has its own default implementation of the .profile script (including
none — it’s allowed not to have a .profile script). But all of them start with some variation
of this:
25
Environment
A basic (but typical) $HOME/.profile
!/bin/sh
if [ -f /etc/profile ]; then
. /etc/profile
fi
PS1= "`whoami`@`hostname -s` `pwd` \$ "
export PS1
This .profile might surprise you a bit: where are all those variables that get set? Most of
the variables that get set for you on a typical Unix system, also get set for all other users.
In order to make that possible and easily maintainable, the common solution is to have each
$HOME/.profile script start by executing another shell script: /etc/profile . This script is
a systemwide script whose contents are maintained by the system administrator (the user
who logs in with username root ). This script sets all sorts of variables and calls scripts that
set even more variables and generally does everything that is necessary to provide each user
with a comfortable working environment.
As you can see from the example above, you can add any personal configuration you want
or need to the .profile script in your directory. The call to execute the system profile script
doesn’t have to be first, but you probably don’t want to remove it altogether.
3.2 Multitasking and job control
With the arrival of fast computers, CPUs that can switch between multiple tasks in a very
small amount of time, CPUs that can actually do multiple things at the same time and
networks of multiple CPUs, having the computer perform multiple tasks at the same time
has become common. Fast task switching provides the illusion that the computer really is
running multiple tasks simultaneously, making it possible to effectively serve multiple users
at once. And the ability to switch to a new CPU task while an old task is waiting for a
peripheral device makes CPU use vastly more efficient.
In order to make use of multitasking abilities as a user, you need a command environment
that supports multitasking. For example, the ability to set one program to a task, then
move on and start a new program while the old one is still running . This kind of ability
allows you as a user to do multiple things at once on the same machine, as long as those
programs do not interfere. Of course, you cannot always treat each program as a ”fire and
forget” affair; you might have to input a password, or the program might be finished and
want to tell you its results. A multitasking environment must allow you to switch between
the multiple programs you have running and allow those programs to send you some sort
of message if your attention is needed.
To make things a little more tangible think of something like downloading files. Usually,
while you’re downloading files, you want to do other stuff as well — otherwise you’re going
to be sitting at the keyboard twiddling your thumbs a really long time when you want to
26
Multitasking and job control
download a whole CD worth of data. So, you start up your file downloader and feed it a
list of files you want to grab. Once you’ve entered them, you can then tell it ”Go!” and
it will start off by downloading the first file and continue until it finishes the last one, or
until there’s a problem. The smarter ones will even try to work through common problems
themselves, such as files not being available. Once it starts you get the standard shell
prompt back, letting you know that you can start another program.
If you want to see how far the file downloader has gotten, simply checking the files in your
system against what you have on your list will tell you. But another way to notify you is
via the environment. The environment can include the files that you work with, and this
can help provide information about the progress of currently running programs like that file
downloader. Did it download all the files? If you check the status file, you’ll see that it’s
downloaded 65% of the files and is just working on the last three now.
Other examples of programs that don’t need their hand held are programs that play music.
Quite often, once you start a program that plays music tracks, you don’t WANT to tell the
program ”Okay, now play the next track”. It should be able to do that for itself, given a list
of songs to play. In fact, it should not even have to hold on to the monitor; it should allow
you to start running other software right after you hit the ”play” button.
In this section we will explore multitasking support within the Unix shell. We will look
at enabling support, at working with multiple tasks and at the utilities that a shell has
available to help you.
3.2.1 Some terminology
Before we discuss the mechanics of multitasking in the shell, let’s cover some terminology.
This will help us discuss the subject clearly and you’ll also know what is meant when you
run across these terms elsewhere.
First of all, when we start a program running on a system in a process of its own, that
process with that one running instance of the program is called a job . You’ll also come
across terms like process, task, instance or similar. But the term used in Unix shells is job.
Second, the ability of the shell to influence and use multitasking (starting jobs and so on)
is referred to as job control .
Job
A process that is executing an instance of a computer program.
Job control
The ability to selectively stop (suspend) the execution of jobs and continue (resume) their
execution at a later point.
Note that these terms are used this way for Unix shells. Other circumstances and other
contexts might allow for different definitions. Here are some more terms you’ll come across:
Job ID
An ID (usually an integer) that uniquely identifies a job. Can be used to refer to jobs for
different tools and commands.
27
Environment
Process ID (or PID)

An ID (usually an integer) that uniquely identifies a process. Can be used to refer to
processes for different tools and commands. Not the same as a Job ID.
Foreground job (or foreground process)
A job that has access to the terminal (i.e. can read from the keyboard and write to the
monitor).
Background job (or background process)
A job that does not have access to the terminal (i.e. cannot read from the keyboard or
write to the monitor).
Stop (or suspend)
Stop the execution of a job and return terminal control to the shell. A stopped job is not
a terminated job.
Terminate
Unload a program from memory and destroy the job that was running the program.
3.2.2 Job control in the shell: what does it mean?
A job is a program you start within the shell. By default a new job will suspend the shell
and take control over the input and output: every stroke you type at the keyboard will go
to the job, as will every mouse movement. Nothing but the job will be able to write to the
monitor. This is what we call a foreground job: it’s in the foreground, clearly visible to you
as a user and obscuring all other jobs in the system from view.
But sometimes that way of working is very clumsy and irritating. What if you start a
long-running job that doesn’t need your input (like a backup of your harddrive)? If this is a
foreground process you have to wait until it’s done before you can do anything else. In this
situation you’d much rather start the program as a background process : a process that is
running, but that doesn’t listen to the input devices and doesn’t write to the monitor. Unix
supports them and the shell (with job control) allows you to start any job as a background
job.
But what about a middle ground? Like that file downloader? You have to start it, log
into a remote server, pick your files and start the download. Only after all that does it
make sense for the job to be in the background. But how do you accomplish that if you’ve
already started the program as a foreground job? Or how about this: you’re busily writing
a document in your favorite editor and you just want to step out to check your mail for a
moment. Do you have to shut down the editor for that? And then, after you’re done with
your mail, restart it, re-open your file and find where you’d left off? That’s inconvenient.
No, a much better idea in both cases is simply to suspend the program: just stop it from
running any further and return to the shell. Once you’re back in the shell, you can start
another program (mail) and then resume the suspended program (editor) when you’re done
with that — and return to the program exactly where you left it. Conversely, you can
28
also decide to let the suspended process (downloader) continue running, but now in the
background.
When we talk about job control in the shell, we are talking about the abilities described
above: to start programs in the background, to suspend running programs and to resume
suspended programs, either in the foreground or in the background.
3.2.3 Enabling job control
In order to do all the things we talked about in the previous section, you need two things:
• An operating system that supports job control.
• A shell that supports job control and has job control enabled.
Unix systems support multitasking and job control. Unix was designed from the ground
up to support multitasking. If you come across a person claiming to be a Unix vendor but
whose software doesn’t support job control, call him a fraud. Then throw his install CDs
away. Then throw him away.
Of course you’ve already guessed what comes next, right? I’m going to tell you Bourne
Shell supports job control. And that you can rely on the same mechanisms to work in all
compatible shells. Guess what: you’re not correct. The original Bourne Shell has no job
control support; it was a single-tasking shell. There was an extended version of the Bourne
Shell though, called jsh (guess what the ’j’ stands for...) which had job control support.
To have job control in the original Bourne Shell, you had to start this extended shell in
interactive mode like this:
Code
jsh -i
Within that shell you had the job control tools we will discuss in the following sections.
Pretty much every other shell written since incorporated job control straight into the basic
shell and the POSIX 1003 standard has standardized the job control utilities. So you can
pretty much rely on job control being available nowadays and usually also enabled by default
in interactive mode (some older shells like Korn shell had support but required you to enable
that support specifically). But just in case, remember that you might have to do some extra
stuff on your system to use job control. There is one gotcha though: in shell scripts, you
usually include an interpreter hint that calls for a Bourne Shell (i.e. #!/bin/sh ). Since
the original Bourne Shell doesn’t have job control, several modern shells turn off job control
by default in non-interactive mode as a compatibility feature.
3.2.4 Creating a job and moving it around
We’ve already talked at length about how to create a foreground job: type a command or
executable name at the prompt, hit enter, there’s your job. Been there, done that, bought
the T-shirt.
29
Environment
We’ve also already mentioned15 how to start a background job: by adding an ampersand
at the end of the command.
Creating a background job
$ ls * > /dev/null &

[1] 4808
$
But that suddenly looks different than when we issued commands previously; there’s a ”[1]”
and some number there. The ”[1]” is the job ID and the number is the process ID . We can
use these numbers to refer to the process and the job that we just created, which is useful
for using tools that work with jobs. When the task finishes, you will receive a notice similar
to the following:
Job done
[1]+ Done ls * > /dev/null &
One of the tools that you use to manage jobs is the ’fg’ command. This command takes a
background job and places it in the foreground. For instance, consider a background job
that actually takes some time to complete:
A heftier job
while [ $CNT -lt 200000 ]; do echo $CNT >> outp.txt; CNT=$(expr $CNT + 1); done
&
We haven’t gotten into flow control16 yet, but this writes 200,000 integers to a file and takes
some time. It also runs in the background. Say that we start this job:
Starting the job
$ CNT=0
$ while [ $CNT -lt 200000 ]; do echo $CNT >> outp.txt; CNT=$(expr $CNT + 1);
done &
[1] 11246
The job is given job ID 1 and process ID 11246. Let’s move the process to the foreground:

30
Moving the job to the front
$ fg %1
while [ $CNT -lt 200000 ]; do
echo $CNT >> outp.txt; CNT=$(expr $CNT + 1);
done
The job is now running in the foreground, as you can tell from the fact that we are not
returned a prompt. Now type the CTRL+Z keyboard combination:
Stopping the job
'CTRL+Z'
[1]+ Stopped while [ $CNT -lt 200000 ]; do
echo $CNT >> outp.txt; CNT=$(expr $CNT + 1);
done
$
Did you notice the shell reports the job as stopped? Try using the ’cat’ command to
inspect the outp.txt file. Try it a couple of times; the contents won’t change. The job is not
a background job; it’s not running at all! The job is suspended. Many programs recognize
the CTRL+Z combination to suspend. And even those that don’t usually have some way
of suspending themselves.
3.2.5 Moving to the background and stopping in the background
Once a job is suspended, you can resume it either in the foreground or the background. To
resume in the foreground you use the ’fg’ command discussed earlier. You use ’bg’ for the
background:
Code
bg jobId
To resume our long-lasting job that writes numbers, we do the following:
Resuming the job in the background
$ bg %1
[1]+ while [ $CNT -lt 200000 ] do
echo $CNT >> outp.txt; CNT=èxpr $CNT + 1`;
done &
$
31
Environment
The output indicates that the job is running again. In the background this time, since we
are also returned a prompt.
Can we also stop a process in the background? Sure, we can move it to the foreground and
hit ’CTRL+Z’. But can we also do it directly? Well, there is no utility or command to do
it. Mostly, you wouldn’t want to do it — the whole point of putting it in the background
was to let it run without bothering anybody or requiring attention. But if you really want
to, you can do it like this:
Code
kill -SIGSTOP jobId
or
Code
kill -SIGSTOP processId
We’ll get back to what this does exactly later17 , when we talk about signals.
3.2.6 Job control tools and job status
We mentioned before that the POSIX 1003.1 standard has standardized a number of the
job control tools that were included for job control in the jsh shell and its successors. We’ve
already looked at a couple of these tools; in this section we will cover the complete list.
The standard list of job control tools consists of the following:
bg
Moves a job to the background.
fg
Moves a job to the foreground.
jobs
Lists the active jobs.
kill
Terminate a job or send a signal to a process.
CTRL+C
Terminate a job (same as ’kill’ using the SIGTERM signal).
CRTL+Z
Suspend a foreground job.
wait
Wait for background jobs to terminate.
32
All of these commands can take a job specification as an argument. A job specification
starts with a percent sign and can be any of the following:
%n
A job ID (n is number).
%s
The job whose command-line started with the string s.
%?s
The jobs whose command-lines contained the string s.
%%
The current job (i.e. the most recent one that you managed using job control).
%+
The current job (i.e. the most recent one that you managed using job control).
%-
The previous job.
We’ve already looked at ’bg’, ’fg’, and CTRL+Z and we’ll cover ’kill’ in a later section18 .
That leaves us with ’jobs’ and ’wait’. Let’s start with the simplest one:
Code
wait [job spec ] ...
job spec is a specification as listed above.
’Wait’ is what you call a synchronization mechanism : it causes the invoking process to sus-
pend until all background jobs terminate. Or, if you include one or more job specifications,
until the jobs you list have terminated. You use ’wait’ if you have fired off multiple jobs
(simply to make use of a system’s parallel processing capabilities) and you cannot proceed
safely until they’re all done.
The ’wait’ command is used in quite advanced scripting. In other words, you might not use
it all that often. Here’s a command that you probably will use regularly though:
Code
jobs [-lnprs] [job spec ] ...
• -l lists the process IDs as well as normal output

• -n limits the output to information about jobs whose status has changed
since the last status report
• -p lists only the process ID of the jobs' process group leader
• -r limits output to data on running jobs
• -s limits output to data on stopped jobs
33
Environment
• job spec is a specification as listed above

The jobs command reports information and status about active jobs (don’t confuse active
with running!). It is important to remember though, that this command reports on jobs and
not processes. Since a job is local to a shell, the ’jobs’ command cannot see across shells.
The ’jobs’ command is a primary source of information on jobs that you can apply job
control to; for starters, you’ll use this command to retrieve job IDs if you don’t remember
them. For example, consider the following:
Using ’jobs’ to report on jobs
Code
$ CNT0=0
$ while [ $CNT0 -lt 200000 ]; do echo $CNT0 >> outtemp0.txt; CNT0=èxpr $CNT0 +
1`; done&
[1] 26859
$ CNT1=0
$ while [ $CNT1 -lt 200000 ]; do echo $CNT1 >> outtemp1.txt; CNT1=èxpr $CNT1 +
1`; done&
[2] 31331
$ jobs
Output
[1]- Running while [ $CNT0 -lt 200000 ]; do

echo $CNT0 >> outtemp0.txt; CNT0=èxpr $CNT0 + 1`;
done &
[2]+ Running while [ $CNT1 -lt 200000 ]; do
echo $CNT1 >> outtemp1.txt; CNT1=èxpr $CNT1 + 1`;
done &
Speaking of state (which is reported by the ’jobs’ command), this is a good time to talk
about the different states we have. Jobs can be in any of several states, sometimes even in
more than one state at the same time. The ’jobs’ command reports on state directly after
the job id and order. We recognize the following states:
Running
This is where the job is doing what it’s supposed to do. You probably don’t need to
interrupt it unless you really want to give the program your personal attention (for example,
to stop the program, or to find out how far through a file download has proceeded). You’ll
generally find that anything in the foreground that’s not waiting for your attention is in
this state, unless it’s been put to sleep.
Sleeping
When programs need to retrieve input that’s not yet available, there is no need for them to
continue using CPU resources. As such, they will enter a sleep mode until another batch
of input arrives. You will see more sleeping processes, since they are not as likely to be
processing data at an exact moment of time.
Stopped
34
The stopped state indicates that the program was stopped by the operating system. This
usually occurs when the user suspends a foreground job (e.g. pressing CTRL-Z) or if it
receives SIGSTOP. At that point, the job cannot actively consume CPU resources and
aside from still being loaded in memory, won’t impact the rest of the system. It will
resume at the point where it left off once it receives the SIGCONT signal or is otherwise
resumed from the shell. The difference between sleeping and stopped is that ”sleep” is a
form of waiting until a planned event happens, whereas ”stop” can be user-initiated and
indefinite.
Zombie
A zombie process appears if the parent’s program terminated before the child could
provide its return value to the parent. These processes will get cleaned up by the init
process but sometimes a reboot will be required to get rid of them.
3.2.7 Other job control related tools
In the last section19 we discussed the standard facilities that are available for job control
in the Unix shell. However, there are also a number of non-standard tools that you might
come across. And even though the focus of this book is Bourne Shell scripting (particularly
as the lingua franca of Unix shell scripting) these tools are so common that we would be
remiss if we did not at least mention them.
Shell commands you might come across
In addition to the tools previously discussed, there are two shell commands that are quite
common: ’stop’ and ’suspend’.
Code
stop job ID
The ’stop’ command is a command that occurs in the shells of many System V-compatible
Unix systems. It is used to suspend background processes — in other words, it is the
equivalent of ’CTRL+Z’ for background processes. It usually takes a job ID, like most of
these commands. On systems that do not have a ’stop’ command, you should be able to
stop background processes by using the ’kill’ command to send a SIGSTOP signal to the
background process.
Code
suspend job ID
suspend [-f]
The other command you might come across is the ’suspend’ command. The ’suspend’
command is a little tricky though, since it doesn’t always mean the same thing on all
systems and all shells. There are two variations known to the authors at this time, both of
which are shown above. The first, obvious one takes a job ID argument and suspends the
indicated job; really it’s just the same as ’CTRL+Z’.
35
Environment
The second variant of ’suspend’ doesn’t take a job ID at all, which is because it doesn’t
suspend any random job. Rather, it suspends the execution of the shell in which the
command was issued. In this variant the -f argument indicates the shell should be suspended
even if it is a login shell. To resume the shell execution, send it a SIGCONT signal using
the ’kill’ command.
The process snapshot utility
The last tool we will discuss is the process snapshot utility, ’ps’. This utility is not a shell
tool at all, but it occurs in some variant on pretty much every system and you will want to
use it often. Possibly more often even than the ’jobs’ tool.
The ’ps’ utility is meant to report on running processes in the system. Processes, not jobs
— meaning it can see across shell instances. Here’s an example of the ’ps’ utility:
Using the ’ps’ utility
Code
$ ps x
Output
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND

32094 tty5 R 3:37:21 /bin/sh
37759 tty5 S 0:00:00 /bin/ps
Typical process output includes the process ID, the ID of the terminal the process is con-
nected to (or running on), the CPU time the process has taken and the command issued to
start the process. Possibly you also get a process state. The process state is indicated by a
letter code, but by-and-large the same states are reported as for job reports: R unning, S
leeping, sT opped and Z ombie. Different ’ps’ implementations may use different or more
codes though.
The main problem with writing about ’ps’ is that it is not exactly standardized, so there
are different command-line option sets available. You’ll have to check the documentation
on your system for specific details. Some options are quite common though, so we will list
them here:
-a
List all processes except group leader processes.
-d
List all processes except session leaders.
-e
List all processes, without taking into account user id and other access limits.
36
-f
Produce a full listing as output (i.e. all reporting options).
-g list
Limit output to processes whose group leader process IDs are mentioned in list .
-l
Produce a long listing.
-p list
Limit output to processes whose process IDs are mentioned in list .
-s list
Limit output to processes whose session leader process IDs are mentioned in list .
-t list
Limit output to processes running on terminals mentioned in list .
-u list
Limit output to processes owned by user accounts mentioned in list .
The ’ps’ tool is useful for monitoring jobs across shell instances and for discovering process
IDs for signal transmission.
37
4 Variable Expansion
In the Environment1 module we introduced the idea of an environment variable as a general

way of storing small pieces of data. In this module we take an in-depth look at using those
variables: ’variable expansion’, ’parameter substitution’ or just ’substitution’.
4.1 Substitution
The reason that using a variable is called substitution is that the shell literally replaces
each reference to any variable with its value. This is done while evaluating the command-
line, which means that the variable substitution is made before the command is actually
executed.
The simplest way of using a variable is the way we’ve already seen, prepending the variable
name with a ’$’. So for instance:
Simple use of a variable
Code
$ USER=JoeSixpack
$ echo $USER
Output
Of course, once the substitution is made the result is still just the text that was in the
variable. The interpretation of that text is still done by whatever program is run. So for
example:
Variables do not make magic
Code
$ USER=JoeSixpack
$ ls $USER
Output
39
Variable Expansion
: cannot access JoeSixpack: No such file or directory
Basic variable expansion is already quite flexible. You can use it as described above, but
you can also use variables to create longer strings. For instance, if you want to set the log
directory for an application to the ”log” directory in your home directory, you might fill in
the setting like this:
$HOME/log
And if you’re going to use that setting more often, you might want to create your own
variable like this:
LOGDIR=$HOME/log
And, of course, if you want specific subdirectories for logs for different programs, then the
logs for the Wyxliz application go into directory
$LOGDIR/Wyxliz/
4.2 Substitution forms
The Bourne Shell has a number of different syntaxes for variable substitution, each with its
own meaning and use. In this section we examine these syntaxes.
4.2.1 Basic variable substitution
We’ve already talked at length about basic variable substitution: you define a variable, stick
a ’$’ in front of it, the shell substitutes the value for the variable. By now you’re probably
bored of hearing about it.
But we’ve not talked about one situation that you might run into with basic variable
substitution. Consider the following:
Adding some text to a variable’s value
Code
$ ANIMAL=duck
$ echo One $ANIMAL, two $ANIMALs
Output
duck, two
So what went wrong here? Well, obviously the shell substituted nothing for the ANIMAL
variable, but why? Because with the extra ’s’ the shell thought we were asking for the
non-existent ANIMALs variable. But what gives there? We’ve used variables in the middle
of strings before (as in ’/home/ANIMAL/logs’). But an ’s’ is not a ’/’: an ’s’ can be a valid
40
Substitution forms
part of a variable name, so the shell cannot tell the difference. In cases where you explicitly
have to separate the variable from other text, you can use braces:
Adding some text to a variable’s value, take II
Code
$ ANIMAL=duck
$ echo One $ANIMAL, two ${ANIMAL}s
Output
duck, two ducks
Both cases (with and without the braces) count as basic variable substitution and the rules
are exactly the same. Just remember not to leave any spaces between the braces and the
variable name.
4.2.2 Substitution with a default value
Since a variable can be empty, you’ll often write code in your scripts to check that mandatory
variables actually have a value. But in the case of optional variables it is usually more
convenient not to check, but to use a default value for the case that a variable is not
defined. This case is actually so common that the Bourne Shell defines a special syntax for
it: the dash. Since a dash can mean other things to the shell as well, you have to combine
it with braces — the final result looks like this:
Code
${ <nowiki/>varname [:]-default <nowiki/>}
varname is the name of the variable
and default is the value used if varname is not defined

Again, don’t leave any spaces between the braces and the rest of the text. The way to use
this syntax is as follows:
Default values
Code
$ THIS_ONE_SET=Hello
$ echo $THIS_ONE_SET ${THIS_ONE_NOT:-World}
Output
World
Compare that to this:
Default not needed
Code
41
Variable Expansion
$ TEXT=aaaaaahhhhhhhh
$ echo Say ${TEXT:-bbbbbbbbbb}
Output
aaaaaahhhhhhhh
Interestingly, the colon is optional; so ${VAR:-default} has the same result as ${VAR-
default}.
4.2.3 Substitution with default assignment
As an extension to default values, there’s a syntax that not only supplies a default value
but assigns it to the unset variable at the same time. It looks like this:
Code
${ <nowiki/>varname [:]=default <nowiki/>}
and default is the value used and assigned if varname is not defined
As usual, avoid spaces in between the braces. Here’s an example that demonstrates how
this syntax works:
Default value assignment
$ echo $NEWVAR
$ echo ${NEWVAR:=newval}
newval
$ echo $NEWVAR
newval
As with the default value syntax, the colon is optional.
4.2.4 Substitution for actual value
This substitution is sort of a quick test to see if a variable is defined (and that’s usually
what it’s used for). It’s sort of the reverse of the default value syntax and looks like this:
Code
${ <nowiki/>varname [:]+substitute <nowiki/>}
and substitute is the value used if varname is defined
42
Substitution forms
This syntax returns the substitute value if the variable is defined. That sounds counterin-
tuitive at first, especially if you ask what is returned if the variable is not defined — and
learn that the value is nothing. Here’s an example:
Actual value substitution
$ echo ${NEWVAR:+newval}
$ NEWVAR=oldval
$ echo ${NEWVAR:+newval}
newval
So what could possibly be the use of this notation? Well, it’s used often in scripts that have
to check whether lots of variables are set or not. In this case the fact that a variable has a
value means that a certain option has been activated, so you’re interested in knowing that
the variable has a value, not what that value is. It looks sort of like this (pseudocode, this
won’t actually work in the shell):

if ${SPECIFIC_OPTION_VAR:+optionset} == optionset then ...
Of course, in this notation the colon is optional as well.
4.2.5 Substitution with value check
This final syntax is sort of a debug check to check whether or not a variable is set. It looks
like this:
Code
${ <nowiki/>varname [:]?message <nowiki/>}
and message is the printed if varname is not defined

With this syntax, if the variable is defined everything is okay. Otherwise, the message is
printed and the command or script exits with a non-zero exit status. Or, if there is no
message, the text ”parameter null or not set” is printed. As usual the colon is optional and
you may not have a space between the colon and the variable name.
You can use this syntax to check that the mandatory variables for your scripts have been
set and to print an error message if they are not.
43
Variable Expansion
$ echo ${SOMEVAR:?has not been set}

-sh: SOMEVAR: has not been set
$ echo ${SOMEVAR:?}
-sh: SOMEVAR: parameter null or not set
44
5 Control flow
So far we’ve talked about basics and theory. We’ve covered the different shells available
and how to get shell scripts running in the Bourne Shell. We’ve talked about the Unix
environment and we’ve seen that you have variables that control the environment and that
you can use to store values for your own use. What we haven’t done yet, though, is actually
done anything. We haven’t made the system act, jump through hoops, fetch the newspaper
or do the dishes.
In this chapter it’s time to get serious. In this chapter we talk programming — how to
write programs that make decisions and execute commands. In this chapter we talk about
control flow and command execution.
5.1 Control Flow
What is the difference between a program launcher and a command shell? Why is Bourne
Shell a tool that has commanded power and respect the world over for decades and not
just a stupid little tool you use to start real programs? Because Bourne Shell is not just an
environment that launches programs: Bourne Shell is a fully programmable environment
with the power of a full programming language at its command. We’ve already seen in En-
vironment1 that Bourne Shell has variables in memory. But Bourne Shell can do more than
that: it can make decisions and repeat commands. Like any real programming language,
Bourne Shell has control flow , the ability to steer the computer.
5.1.1 Test: evaluating conditions
Before we can make decisions in shell scripts, we need a way of evaluating conditions. We
have to be able to check the state of certain affairs so that we can base our decisions on
what we find.
Strangely enough the actual shell doesn’t include any mechanism for this. There is a tool
for exactly this purpose called test (and it was literally created for use in shell scripts),
but nevertheless it is not strictly part of the shell. The ’test’ tool evaluates conditions and
returns either true or false , depending on what it finds. It returns these values in the
form of an exit status (in the $? shell variable): a zero for true and something else for
false . The general form of the test command is
Code
test condition
45
Control flow
as in
A test for string equality
test "Hello World" = "Hello World"
This test for the equality of two strings returns an exit status of zero. There is also a short-
hand notation for ’test’ which is usually more readable in scripts, namely square brackets:
Code
[ condition ]
Note the spaces between the brackets and the actual condition − don’t forget them in your
own scripts. The equivalent of the example above in shorthand is
A shorter test for string equality
[ "Hello World" = "Hello World" ]
’Test’ can evaluate a number of different kinds of conditions, to fit with the different kinds
of tests that you’re likely to want to carry out in a shell script. Most specific shells have
added on to the basic set of available conditions, but Bourne Shell recognizes the following:
File conditions
-b file
file exists and is a block special file
-c file
file exists and is a character special file
-d file
file exists and is a directory
-f file
file exists and is a regular data file
-g file
file exists and has its set-group-id bit set
-k file
file exists and has its sticky bit set
-p file
file exists and is a named pipe
-r file
46
Control Flow
file exists and is readable

-s file
file exists and its size is greater than zero
-t [n]
The open file descriptor with number n is a terminal device; n is optional, default 1
-u file
file exists and has its set-user-id bit set
-w file
file exists and is writable
-x file
file exists and is executable
String conditions
-n s
s has non-zero length
-z s
s has zero length
s0 = s1
s0 and s1 are identical
s0 != s1
s0 and s1 are different
s
s is not null (often used to check that an environment variable has a value)
Integer conditions
n0 -eq n1
n0 is equal to n1
n0 -ge n1
n0 is greater than or equal to n1
n0 -gt n1
n0 is strictly greater than n1
n0 -le n1
n0 is less than or equal to n1
n0 -lt n1
47
Control flow
n0 is strictly less than n1

n0 -ne n1
n0 is not equal to n1
Finally, conditions can be combined and grouped:
$B $
Parentheses are used for grouping conditions (don’t forget the backslashes). A grouped
condition (B ) is true if B is true.
! B
Negation; is true if B is false.
B0 -a B1
And; is true if B0 and B1 are both true.
B0 -o B1
Or; is true if either B0 or B1 is true.
5.1.2 Conditional execution
Okay, so now we know how to evaluate some conditions. Let’s see how we can make use of
this ability to do some programming.
All programming languages need two things: a form of decision making or conditional execu-
tion and a form of repetition or looping. We’ll get to looping later, for now let’s concentrate
on conditional execution. Bourne Shell supports two forms of conditional execution, the if
-statement and the case -statement.
The if -statement is the most general of the two. It’s general form is
Code
if command-list
then command-list
elif command-list
then command-list
...
else command-list
This command is to be interpreted as follows:

1. The command list following the if is executed.
48
Control Flow
2. If the last command returns a status zero, the command list following the first then
is executed and the statement terminates after completion of the last command in
this list.
3. If the last command returns a non-zero status, the command list following the first
elif (if there is one) is executed.
4. If the last command returns a status zero, the command list following the next then
is executed and the statement terminates after completion of the last command in
this list.
5. If the last command returns a non-zero status, the command list following the next
elif (if there is one) is executed and so on.
6. If no command list following the if or an elif terminates in a zero status, the command
list following the else (if there is one) is executed.
7. The statement terminates. If the statement terminated without an error, the return
status is zero.
It is interesting to note that the if -statement allows command lists everywhere, including in
places where conditions are evaluated. This means that you can execute as many compound
commands as you like before reaching a decision point. The only command that affects the
outcome of the decision is the last one executed in the list.
In most cases though, for the sake of readability and maintainability, you will want to limit
yourself to one command for a condition. In most cases this command will be a use of the
’test’ tool.
Example of a simple if statement
Code
if [ 1 -gt 0 ]
then
echo YES
fi
Output
Example of an if statement with an else clause

Code
if [ 1 -le 0 ]
then
echo YES
else
echo NO
fi
Output
Example of a full if statement with an else clause and two elifs
49
Control flow
Code
rank=captain
if [ "$rank" = colonel ]
then
echo Hannibal Smith
elif [ "$rank" = captain ]
then
echo Howling Mad Murdock
elif [ "$rank" = lieutenant ]
then
echo Templeton Peck
else
echo B.A. Baracus
fi
Output
Mad Murdock
The case -statement is sort of a special form of the if -statement, specialized in the kind
of test demonstrated in the last example: taking a value and comparing it to a fixed set
of expected values or patterns. The case statement is used very frequently to evaluate
command line arguments to scripts. For example, if you write a script that uses switches to
identify command line arguments, you know that there are only a limited number of legal
switches. The case -statement is an elegant alternative to a potentially messy if -statement
in such a case.
The general form of the case statement is
Code
case value in
pattern0 ) command-list-0 ;;
pattern1 ) command-list-1 ;;
...
esac
The value can be any value, including an environment variable. Each pattern is a regular
expression and the command list executed is the one for the first pattern that matches the
value (so make sure you don’t have overlapping patterns). Each command list must end
with a double semicolon. The return status is zero if the statement terminates without
syntax errors.
The last ’if’-example revisited
Code
rank=captain
case $rank in
50
Control Flow
colonel) echo Hannibal Smith;;

captain) echo Howling Mad Murdock;;
lieutenant) echo Templeton Peck;;
sergeant) echo B.A. Baracus;;
*) echo OOPS;;
esac
Output
Mad Murdock
If versus case: what is the difference?

So what exactly is the difference between the if - and case -statements? And what is
the point of having two statements that are so similar? Well, the technical difference is
this: the case -statement works off of data available to the shell (like an environment
variable), whereas the if -statement works off the exit status of a program or command.
Since fixed values and environment variables depend on the shell but the exit status is a
concept general to the Unix system, this means that the if -statement is more general than
the case -statement.
Let’s look at a slightly larger example, just to put the two together and compare:
!/bin/sh
if [ "$2" ]
then
sentence="$1 is a"
else
echo Not enough command line arguments! >&2
exit 1
fi
case $2 in
fruit|veg*) sentence="$sentence vegetarian!";;
meat) sentence="$sentence meat eater!";;
*) sentence="${sentence}n omnivore!";;
esac
echo $sentence
Note that this is a shell script and that it uses positional variables to capture command-line
arguments. The script starts with an if -statement to check that we have the right number
of arguments − note the use of ’test’ to see if the value of variable $2 is not null and the exit
status of ’test’ to determine how the if -statement proceeds. If there are enough arguments,
we assume the first argument is a name and start building the sentence that is the result of
our script. Otherwise we write an error message (to stderr, the place to write errors; read
51
Control flow
all about it in Files and streams2 ) and exit the script with a non-zero return value. Note
that this else statement has a command list with more than one command in it.
Assuming we got through the if -statement without trouble, we get to the case -statement.
Here we check the value of variable $2, which should be a food preference. If that value is
either fruit or something starting with veg, we add a claim to the script result that some
person is a vegetarian. If the value was exactly meat, the person is a meat eater. Anything
else, he is an omnivore. Note that in that last case pattern clause we have to use curly
braces in the variable substitution; that’s because we want to add a letter n directly onto
the existing value of sentence, without a space in between.
Let’s put the script in a file called ’preferences.sh’ and look at the effect of some calls of
this script:
Calling the script with different effects
$ sh preferences.sh
Not enough command line arguments!
$ sh preferences.sh Joe
Not enough command line arguments!
$ sh preferences.sh Joe fruit
Joe is a vegetarian!
$ sh preferences.sh Joe veg
$ sh preferences.sh Joe vegetables
$ sh preferences.sh Joe meat
Joe is a meat eater!
$ sh preferences.sh Joe meat potatoes
Joe is a meat eater!
$ sh preferences.sh Joe potatoes
Joe is an omnivore!
5.1.3 Repetition
In addition to conditional execution mechanisms every programming language needs a

means of repetition, repeated execution of a set of commands. The Bourne Shell has sev-
eral mechanisms for exactly that: the while -statement, the until -statement and the for
-statement.
52
Control Flow
The while loop
The while -statement is the simplest and most straightforward form of repetition statement
in Bourne shell. It is also the most general. Its general form is this:
Code
while command-list1
do command-list2
done
The while -statement is interpreted as follows:

1. Execute the commands in command list 1.
2. If the exit status of the last command is non-zero, the statement terminates.
3. Otherwise execute the commands in command list 2 and go back to step 1.
4. If the statement does not contain a syntax error and it ever terminates, it terminates
with exit status zero.
Much like the if -statement, you can use a full command list to control the while -statement
and only the last command in that list actually controls the statement. But in reality you
will probably want to limit yourself to one command and, as with the if -statement, you
will usually use the ’test’ program for that command.
A while loop that prints all the values between 0 and 10
Code
counter=0
while [ $counter -lt 10 ]

do
echo $counter
counter=èxpr $counter + 1`
done
Output
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
The while -statement is commonly used to deal with situations where a script can have an
indeterminate number of command-line arguments, by using the shift command and the
special ’$#’ variable that indicates the number of command-line arguments:
53
Control flow
Printing all the command-line arguments
!/bin/sh
while [ $ -gt 0 ]
do
echo $1
shift
done
The until loop
The until -statement is also a repetition statement, but it is sort of the semantic opposite
of the while -statement. The general form of the until -statement is
Code
until command-list1
do command-list2
done
The interpretation of this statement is almost the same as that of the while -statement.
The only difference is that the commands in command list 2 are executed as long as the
last command of command list 1 returns a non-zero status. Or, to put it more simply:
command list 2 is executed as long as the condition of the loop is not met.
Whereas while -statements are mostly used to establish some effect (”repeat until done”),
until -statements are more commonly used to poll for the existence of some condition or
to wait until some condition is met. For instance, assume some process is running that will
write 10000 lines to a certain file. The following until -statement waits for the file to have
grown to 10000 lines:
Waiting for myfile.txt to grow to 10000 lines
until [ $lines -eq 10000 ]

do
lines=`wc -l dates | awk '{print $1}'`
sleep 5
done
54
Control Flow
The for loop
In the section on Control flow3 , we discussed that the difference between if and case was
that the first depended on command exit statuses whereas the second was closely linked to
data available in the shell. That kind of pairing also exists for repetition statements: while
and until use command exit statuses and for uses data explicitly available in the shell.
The for -statement loops over a fixed, finite set of values. Its general form is
Code
for name in w1 w2 ...
do command-list
done
This statement executes the command list for each value named after the ’in’. Within the
command list, the ”current” value wi is available through the variable name . The value list
must be separated from the ’do’ by a semicolon or a newline. And the command list must
be separated from the ’done’ by a semicolon or a newline. So, for example:
A for loop that prints some values
Code
for myval in Abel Bertha Charlie Delta Easy Fox Gumbo Henry India
do
echo $myval Company
done
Output
Company
Bertha Company
Charlie Company
Delta Company
Easy Company
Fox Company
Gumbo Company
Henry Company
India Company
The for statement is used a lot to loop over command line arguments. For that reason the
shell even has a shorthand notation for this use: if you leave off the ’in’ and the values part,
the command assumes $* as the list of values. For example:
Using for to loop over command line arguments
Code
55
Control flow
#!/bin/sh
for arg
do
echo $arg
done
Output
$ sh loop_args.sh A B C D
5.2 Command execution
In the last section on Control Flow4 we discussed the major programming constructs and
control flow statements offered by the Bourne Shell. However, there are lots of other syn-
tactic constructs in the shell that allow you to control the way commands are executed
and to embed commands in other commands. In this section we discuss some of the more
important ones.
5.2.1 Command joining
Earlier, we looked at the if -statement as a method of conditional execution. In addition

to this expansive statement the Bourne Shell also offers a method of directly linking two
commands together and making the execution of one of them conditional on the outcome
(the exit status) of the other. This is useful for making quick, inline decisions on command
execution. But you probably wouldn’t want to use these constructs in a shell script or for
longer command sequences, because they aren’t the most readable.
You can join commands together using the && and || operators. These operators (which
you might recognize as borrowed from the C programming language) are short circuiting
operators: they make the execution of the second command dependent on the exit status
of the first and so can allow you to avoid unnecessary command executions.
The && operator joins two commands together and only executes the second if the exit
status of the first is zero (i.e. the first command ”succeeds”). Consider the following example:
4 Chapter 5.1 on page 45
56
Command execution
Attempt to create a file and delete it again if the creation succeeds
echo Hello World > tempfile.txt && rm tempfile.txt
In this example the deletion would be pointless if the file creation fails (because the file sys-
tem is read-only, say). Using the && operator prevents the deletion from being attempted
if the file creation fails. A similar − and possibly more useful − example is this:
Check if a file exists and make a backup copy if it does
test -f myi mportantf ile && cp myi mportantf ile backup
In contrast to the && operator, the || operator executes the second command only if the
exit status of the first command is not zero (i.e. it fails). Consider the following example:
Make sure we do not overwrite a file; create a new file only if it doesn’t
exist yet
test -f myf ile || echo Hello W orld > myf ile
For both these operators the exit status of the joined commands is the exit status of the
last command that actually got executed.
5.2.2 Command grouping
You can join multiple commands into one command list by joining them using the ; operator,
like so:
Create a directory and change into it all in one go
mkdir newdir;cd newdir
There is no conditional execution here; all commands are executed, even if one of them fails.
When joining commands into a command list, you can group the commands together for
clarity and some special handling. There are two ways of grouping commands: using curly
braces and using parentheses.
Grouping using curly braces is just for clarity; it doesn’t add any semantics to joining using
semicolons. The only differences between with braces and without are that if you use braces
you must insert an extra semicolon after your command list and you have to remember to
57
Control flow
put spaces between the braces and your command list or the shell won’t understand what
you mean. Here’s an example:
Create a directory and change into it all in one go, grouped with curly braces
{ mkdir newdir;cd newdir; }
The parentheses are far more interesting. When you group a command list with parentheses,
it is executed... in a separate process. This means that whatever you do in the command
list doesn’t affect the environment in which you gave the command. Consider the example
above again, with braces and parentheses:
Create a directory and change into it all in one go, grouped with curly braces
Code
/home$ { mkdir newdir;cd newdir; }
Output
/home/newdir$
Create a directory and change into it all in one go, grouped with parentheses
Code
/home$ (mkdir newdir;cd newdir)
Output
/home$
Here’s another one:

Creating shell variables in the current and in a new environment
Code
$ VAR0=A
$ (VAR1=B)
$ echo \"$VAR0\" \"$VAR1\"
Output
"A" ""
58
Command execution
5.2.3 Command substitution
In the chapter on Environment5 we talked about variable substitution. The Bourne Shell
also supports command substitution . This is sort of like variable substitution, but instead
of a variable being replaced by its value a command is replaced by its output. We saw
an example of this earlier when discussing the while -statement, where we assigned the
outcome of an arithmetic expression evaluation to an environment variable.
Command substitution is accomplished using either of two notations. The original Bourne
Shell used grave accents (‘command ‘), which is still generally supported by most shells.
Later on the POSIX 1003.1 standard added the $( command ) notation. Consider the
following examples:
Making a daily backup (old-skool)
cp myfile backup/myfile-`date`
Making a daily backup (POSIX 1003.1)
cp myfile backup/myfile-$(date)
5.2.4 Regular expressions and metacharacters
Usually, in the day-to-day tasks that you do with your shell, you will want to be explicit
and exact about which files you want to operate on. After all, you want to delete a specific
file and not a random one. And you want to send your network communications to the
network device file and not to the keyboard.
But there are times, especially in scripting, when you will want to be able to operate on
more than one file at a time. For instance, if you have written a script that makes a regular
backup of all the files in your home directory whose names end in ”.dat”. If there are a lot
of those files, or there are more being made each day with new names each time, then you
do not want to have to name all those files explicitly in your backup script.
We have also seen another example of not wanting to be too explicit: in the section on the
case -statement, there is an example where we claim that somebody is a vegetarian if he
likes fruit or anything starting with ”veg”. We could have included all sorts of options there
and been explicit (although there are an infinite number of words you can make that start
with ”veg”). But we used a pattern instead and saved ourselves a lot of time.
For exactly these cases the shell supports a (limited) form of regular expressions : patterns
that allow you to say something like ”I mean every string, every sequence of characters,
59
Control flow
that looks sort of like this”. The shell allows you to use these regular expressions anywhere
(although they don’t always make sense — for example, it makes no sense to use a regular
expression to say where you want to copy a file). That means in shell scripts, in the
interactive shell, as part of the case -statement, to select files, general strings, anything.
In order to create regular expressions you use one or more metacharacters . Metacharacters
are characters that have special meaning to the shell and are automatically recognized as
part of regular expressions. The Bourne shell recognizes the following metacharacters:
*
Matches any string.
?
Matches any single character.
[characters ]
Matches any character enclosed in the angle brackets.
[!characters ]
Matches any character not enclosed in the angle brackets.
pat0 |pat1
Matches any string that matches pat0 or pat1 (only in case -statement patterns!)
Here are some examples of how you might use regular expressions in the shell:
List all files whose names end in ”.dat”
ls *.dat
List all files whose names are ”file-” followed by two characters followed by
”.txt”
ls file-??.txt
Make a backup copy of all text files, with a datestamp
for i in *.txt; do cp $i backup/$i-`date +%Y%m%d`; done
60
Command execution
List all files in the directories Backup0 and Backup1
ls Backup[01]
List all files in the other backup directories
ls Backup[!01]
Execute all shell scripts whose names start with ”myscript” and end in ”.sh”
myscript*.sh
Regular expressions and hidden files
When selecting files, the metacharacters match all files except files whose names start with
a period (”.”). Files that start with a period are either special files or are assumed to be
configuration files. For that reason these files are semi-protected, in the sense that you
cannot just pick them up with the metacharacters. In order to include these files when
selecting with regular expressions, you must include the leading period explicitly. For
example:
Lising all files whose names start with a period
Code
/home$ ls .*
Output
.
..
.profile
The example above shows a listing of period files. In this example the listing includes
’.profile’, which is the user configuration file for the Bourne Shell. It also includes the
special directories ’.’ (which means ”the current directory”) and ’..’ (which is the parent
directory of the current directory). You can address these special directories like any other.
So for instance
Code
.
61
Control flow
is the same semantically as just ’ls’ and

Code
..
changes your working directory to the parent directory of the directory that was your
working directory before.
5.2.5 Quoting
When you introduce special characters like the metacharacters discussed in the previous
section, you automatically get into situations when you really don’t want those special
characters evaluated. For example, assume that you have a file whose name includes an
asterisk (’*’). How would you address that file? For example:
Metacharacters in file names can cause problems
Code
echo Test0 > asterisk*.file

echo Test1 > asteriskSTAR.file
cat asterisk*.file
Output
0
Test1
Clearly what is needed is a way of temporarily turning metacharacters off. The Bourne
Shell built-in quoting mechanisms do exactly that. In fact, they do a lot more than that.
For instance, if you have a file name with spaces in it (so that the shell cannot tell the
different words in the file name belong together) the quoting mechanisms will help you deal
with that problem as well.
There are three quoting mechanisms in the Bourne Shell:
\
backslash, for single character quoting.
’’
single quotes, to quote entire strings.
””
double quotes, to quote entire strings but still allow for some special characters.
The simplest of these is the backslash, which quotes the character that immediately follows
it. So, for example:
62
Command execution
Echo with an asterisk

Code
echo *
Output
asterisk*.file asterisking.file backup biep.txt BLAAT.txt conditional1.sh condit
ional1.sh˜ conditional.sh conditional.sh˜ dates error_test.sh error_test.sh˜ fil
e with spaces.txt looping0.sh looping1.sh out_nok out_ok preferences.sh pre
ferences.sh˜ test.txt Echoing an asterisk
Code
echo \*
Output
*
So the backslash basically disables special character interpretation for the duration of one
character. Interestingly, the newline character is also considered a special character in this
context, so you can use the backslash to split commands to the interpreter over multiple
lines. Like so:
A multiline command
Code
echo This is a \
>very long command!
Output
is a very long command!
The backslash escape also works for file names with spaces:
Difficult file to list...
Code
ls file with spaces.txt
Output
ls: cannot access file: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access with: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access spaces.txt: No such file or directory Listing the file using escapes
Code
ls file\ with\ spaces.txt
Output
with spaces.txt
63
Control flow
But what if you want to pass a backslash to the shell? Well, think about it. Backslash
disables interpretation of one character, so if you want to use a backslash for anything else...
then ’\\’ will do it!
So we’ve seen that a backslash allows you to disable special character interpretation for a
single character by quoting it. But what if you want to quote a lot of special characters all
at once? As you’ve seen above with the filename with spaces, you can quote each special
character separately, but that gets to be a drag really quickly. Usually it’s quicker, easier and
less error-prone simply to quote an entire string of characters in one go. To do exactly that
you use single quotes. Two single quotes quote the entire string they surround, disabling
interpretation of all special characters in that string — with the exception of the single
quote (so that you can stop quoting as well). For example:
Quoting to use lots of asterisks
Code
echo '*******'
Output
*******
So let’s try something. Let’s assume that for some strange reason we would like to print
three asterisks (”***”), then a space, then the current working directory, a space and three
more asterisks. We know we can disable metacharater interpretation with single quotes so
this should be no biggy, right? And to make life easy, the built-in command ’pwd’ p rints
the w orking d irectory, so this is really easy:
Printing the working directory with decorations
Code
echo '*** `pwd` ***'
Output
*** `pwd` ***
So what went wrong? Well, the single quotes disable interpretation of all special characters.
So the grave accents we used for the command substitution didn’t work! Can we make it
work a different way? Like by using the Path of Working Directory environmentvariable
($PWD)? Nope, the $-character won’t work either.
This is a typical Goldilocks problem. We want to quote some special characters, but not
all. We could use backslashes, but that doesn’t do enough to be convenient (it’s too cold).
We can use single quotes, but that kills too many special characters (it’s too hot). What
we need is quoting that’s juuuust riiiiight . More to the point, what we want (and more
often than you think) is to disable all special character interpretation except variable and
command substitution. Because this is a common desire the shell supports it through
a separate quoting mechanism: the double quote. The double quote disables all special
character interpretation except the grave accent (command substitution), the $ (variable
substitution) and the double quote (so you can stop quoting). So the solution to our problem
above is:
64
Command execution
Printing the working directory with decorations, take II

Code
echo "*** `pwd` ***"
Output
*** /home/user/examples ***
By the way, we actually cheated a little bit above for educational purposes (hey, you try
coming up with these examples); we could also have solved the problem like this:
Printing the working directory with decorations, alternative
Code
echo '***' `pwd` '***'
Output
*** /home/user/examples ***
65
6 Files and streams
6.1 The Unix world: one file after another
When you think of a computer and everything that goes with it, you usually come up with
a mental list of all sorts of different things:
• The computer itself
• The monitor
• The keyboard
• The mouse
• Your hard drive with your files and directories on it
• The network connection leading to the Internet
• The printer
• The DVD player
• et cetera
Here’s a surprise for you: Unix doesn’t have any of these things. Well, almost. Unix
certainly has files . Unix has endless reams of files. And since Unix has files, it also has
a concept of ”between files” (think of it this way: if your universe consists only of boxes,
you automatically know about spaces where there are no boxes as well). But Unix knows
nothing else than that. Everything in the whole (Unix) universe is a file.
Everything is a file. Even things that are really weird things to think of as files, are files.
Your (data) files are files. Your directories are files. Your hard drive is a file. Your keyboard
, monitor and printer are files. Yes, really: your keyboard is a read-only file of infinite size.
Your monitor and printer are infinitely sized write-only files. Your network connection is a
read/write file.
At this point you’re probably asking: Why? Why would the designers of the Unix system
have come up with this madness? Why is everything a file? The answer is: because if
everything is a file, you can treat everything like a file. Or, put a different way, you can
treat everything in the Unix world the same way. And, as we will see shortly, that means
you can also combine virtually everything using file operations.
Before we move on, here’s an extra level of weirdness for you: everything in Unix is a file.
Including the processes that run programs. Effectively this means that running programs
are also files. Including the interactive shell session that you’ve been running to practice
scripting in. Yes, really, that text screen with the blinking cursor is also a file. And we can
prove it too. You might recall that in the chapter on Running Commands1 we mentioned you
can exit the shell using the Ctrl+d key combination. Because that combination produces
the Unix character for... that’s right, end-of-file!
67
Files and streams
6.2 Streams: what goes between files
As we mentioned in the previous section, everything in Unix is a file -- except that which
sits between files. Between files Unix defines a mechanism that allows data to move, bit by
bit, from one file to another: the stream . A stream is literally what it sounds like: a little
river of bits pouring from one file into another. Although actually a bridge would probably
have been a better name because unlike a stream (which is a constant flow of water) the
flow of bits between files need not be constant, or even used at all.
6.2.1 The standard streams
Within the Unix world it is a general convention that each file is connected to at least
three streams (that’s because that turned out to be the most useful number for those files
that are processes, or running programs). There can be more and in fact each file can
cause itself to be connected to any number of streams (a program can print and open a
network connection, for instance). But there are three basic streams available to all files,
even though they may not always be useful or used. These streams are called the ”standard”
streams:
Standard in (stdin)
the standard stream for input into a file.
Standard out (stdout)
the standard stream for output out of a file.
Standard error (stderr)
the standard stream for error output from a file.
As you can probably tell, these streams are very geared towards those files that are actually
processes of the system. In fact many programming languages (like C, C++, Java and
Pascal) use exactly these conventions for their standard I/O operations. And since the
Unix operating system family includes them in the core of the system definition, these
streams are also central to the Bourne Shell.
6.2.2 Getting hold of the standard streams in your scripts
So now we know that there’s a general mechanism for basic input and output in Unix; but
how do you get hold of these streams in a script? What do you have to do to hook your
script up to the standard out, or read from the standard in? Well, the happy answer is:
nothing. Your scripts are automatically connected to the standard in, out and error stream
of the process that is running them. When you read input, it automatically comes from the
standard in. Your output goes straight to the standard out. And program errors go right
to the standard error. In fact you’ve already used these streams: every example so far that
has printed anything has done so to the standard output stream of your script.
68
Redirecting: using streams in the shell
And what about the shell in interactive mode? Does that use those standard streams as
well? Yes, it does. In interactive mode, the standard in stream is connected to the keyboard
file. And the standard output and standard error are connected to the monitor file.
6.2.3 Okay... But what good is it?
This discussion on files and streams has been very interesting so far and a nice insight into
the depths of Unix. But what good does it do you to know all this? Ah, glad you asked!
The Bourne Shell has some built-in features that allow you to do neat tricks involving files
and their streams. You see, files don’t just have streams -- you can also cross-connect the
streams of two files. At the end of the previous section we said that the standard input of the
interactive session is connected to the keyboard file. In fact it is connected to the standard
output stream of the keyboard file. And the standard output and error of the interactive
session are connected to the standard input of the monitor file. So you can connect the
streams of the interactive session to the streams of devices.
But wait. Do you remember the remark above that the point of Unix considering everything
to be a file was that everything gets treated like a file? This is why that was important:
you can connect a stream from any file to a stream of any other file. You can connect
your interactive shell session to the printer or the network rather than to the monitor (or
in addition to the monitor) using streams. You can run a program and have its output go
directly to the printer by reconnecting the standard output stream of the program. You can
connect the standard output stream of one program directly to the standard input stream
of another program and make chains of programs. And the Bourne Shell makes it really
simple to do all that.
Do you suddenly feel like you’ve stuck your fingers in the electrical socket? That’s the
feeling of the raw power of the shell flowing through your body....
6.3 Redirecting: using streams in the shell
As explained in the previous section, the shell process is connected by standard streams to
(by default) the keyboard and the monitor. But very often you will want to change this
linking. Connecting a file to a stream is a very common operation, so would expect it to
be called something like ”connecting” or ”linking”. But since the Bourne Shell has default
connections and everything you do is always a change in the default connections, connecting
a file to a (different) stream using the shell is actually called redirecting .
There are several operators built in to the Bourne Shell that relate to redirecting. The most
basic and general one is the pipe operator, which we will examine in some detail further on.
The others are related to redirecting to file.
6.3.1 Redirecting to file
As we explained (or rather: hinted at) in the previous section, one of the enormously
powerful features of the Bourne Shell on top of a Unix operating system is the ability to
69
Files and streams
chain programs together. Execute a program, have it produce output, then automatically
send that output to another program as input. The possible combinations are endless, as
is the power of what you can achieve.
One of the most common places where you might want to send a program’s output is to a file
in the file system. And this time by file we mean a regular, classic data file and not a Unix
”everything is a file including your hardware” file. In order to achieve this you can imagine
that we can use the chaining mechanism described above: let a program generate output
through the standard output stream, then connect that stream (i.e. redirect the output ) to
the standard input stream of a program that creates a data file in the file system. And this
would absolutely work. However, redirecting to a data file is such a common operation that
you don’t need a separate end-of-chain program for it. Redirecting to file is built straight
into the Bourne Shell, through the following operators:
process > data file
redirect the output of process to the data file; create the file if necessary, overwrite its
existing contents otherwise.
process >> data file
redirect the output of process to the data file; create the file if necessary, append to its
existing contents otherwise.
process < data file
read the contents of the data file and redirect that contents to process as input.
Redirecting output
Let’s take a closer look at these operators through some examples. Take the simple Bourne
shell script below called ’hello.sh’:
A simple shell script that generates some output
!/bin/sh
echo Hello
This code may be run in any of the ways described in the chapter Running Commands2 .
When we run the script, it simply outputs the string ”Hello” to the screen and then returns
us to our prompt. But let’s say we want to redirect the output to a file instead. We can
use the redirect operators to do that easily:
70
Redirecting the output to a data file
$ hello.sh > myfile.txt

$
This time, we don’t see the string ’Hello’ on the screen. Where’s it gone? Well, exactly
where we wanted it to: into the (new) data file called ’myfile.txt’. Let’s examine this file
using the ’cat’ command:
Examining the results of redirecting some output
$ cat myfile.txt
Hello
$
Let’s run the program again, this time using the ’>>’ operator instead, and then examine
’myfile.txt’ again using the ’cat’ command:
Redirecting using the append redirect
$ hello.sh >> myfile.txt

$ cat myfile.txt
Hello
Hello
$
You can see that ’myfile.txt’ now consists of two lines — the output has been added to the
end of the file (or concatenated); this is due to the use of the ’>>’ operator. If we run the
script again, this time with the single greater-than operator, we get:
Redirecting using the overwrite redirect
$ hello.sh > myfile.txt

$ cat myfile.txt
Hello
$
Just one ’Hello’ again, because the ’>’ will always overwrite the contents of an existing file
if there is one.
71
Files and streams
Redirecting input
Okay, so it’s clear we can redirect output to a data file. But what about reading from a
data file? That’s also pretty common. The Bourne Shell helps us here as well: the entire
process of reading a file and pumping its data into a stream is captured by the ’<’ operator.
By default ’stdin’ is fed from your keyboard; run the ’cat’ command without any arguments
and it will just sit there, waiting for you to type something:
cat ???
$ cat
I can type all day here, and I never seem to get my prompt back from
this stupid machine.
I have even pressed RETURN a few times !!!
.....etc....etc
In fact ’cat’ will sit there all day until you type a ’Ctrl+D’ (the ’End of File Character’ or
’EOF’ for short). To redirect our standard input from somewhere else use the ’<’ (less-than
operator):
Redirecting into the standard input
$ cat < myfile.txt

Hello
$
So ’cat’ will now read from the text file ’myfile.txt’; the ’EOF’ character is also generated
at the end of file, so ’cat’ will exit as before.
Note that we previously used ’cat’ in this format:
Code
$ cat myfile.txt
Which is functionally identical to

Code
$ cat < myfile.txt
However, these are two fundamentally different mechanisms: one uses an argument to the
command, the other is more general and redirects ’stdin’ − which is what we’re concerned
72
with here. It’s more convenient to use ’cat’ with a filename as argument, which is why
the inventors of ’cat’ put this in. However, not all programs and scripts are going to take
arguments so this is just an easy example.
Combining file redirects
It’s possible to redirect ’stdin’ and ’stdout’ in one line:
Redirecting input to and output from cat at the same time
$ cat < myfile.txt > mynewfile.txt
The command above will copy the contents of ’myfile.txt’ to ’mynewfile.txt’ (and will over-
write any previous contents of ’mynewfile.txt’). Once again this is just a convenient example
as we normally would have achieved this effect using ’cp myfile.txt mynewfile.txt’.
Redirecting standard error (and other streams)
So far we have looked at redirecting the ”normal” standard streams associated with files,
i.e. the files that you use if everything goes correctly and as planned. But what about
that other stream? The one meant for errors? How do we go about redirecting that? For
example, if we wanted to redirect error data into a log file.
As an example, consider the ls command. If you run the command ’ls myfile.txt’, it simply
lists the filename ’myfile.txt’ − if that file exists. If the file ’myfile.txt’ does NOT exist, ’ls’
will return an error to the ’stderr’ stream, which by default in Bourne Shell is also connected
to your monitor.
So, lets run ’ls’ a couple of times, first on a file which does exist and then on one that
doesn’t:
Listing an existing file
Code
$ ls myfile.txt
Output
.txt
$
and then:
Listing a non-existent file
Code
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Files and streams
$ ls nosuchfile.txt
Output
: no such file or directory
$
And again, this time with ’stdout’ redirected only:
Trying to redirect...
Code
$ ls nosuchfile.txt > logfile.txt
Output
$
We still see the error message; ’logfile.txt’ will be created but will be empty. This is because
we have now redirected the stdout stream, while the error message was written to the error
stream. So how do we tell the shell that we want to redirect the error stream?
In order to understand the answer, we have to cover a little more theory about Unix files
and streams. You see, deep down the reason that we can redirect stdin and stdout with
simple operators is that redirecting those streams is so common that the shell lets us use
a shorthand notation for those streams. But actually, to be completely correct, we should
have told the shell in every case which stream we wanted to redirect. In general you see,
the shell cannot know: there could be tons of streams connected to any file. And in order
to distinguish one from the other each stream connected to a file has a number associated
with it: by convention 0 is the standard in, 1 is the standard out, 2 is standard error and
any other streams have numbers counting on from there. To redirect any particular stream
you prepend the redirect operator with the stream number (called the file descriptor . So
to redirect the error message in our example, we prepend the redirect operator with a 2, for
the stderr stream:
Redirecting the stderr stream
Code
$ ls nosuchfile.txt 2> logfile.txt
Output
$
No output to the screen, but if we examine ’logfile.txt’:

Checking the logfile
74
Code
$ cat logfile.txt
Output
$
As we mentioned before, the operator without a number is a shorthand notation. In other
words, this:
Code
$ cat < inputfile.txt > outputfile.txt
is actually short for

Code
$ cat 0< inputfile.txt 1> outputfile.txt
We can also redirect both ’stdout’ and ’stderr’ independently like this:
Code
$ ls nosuchfile.txt > stdio.txt 2>logfile.txt
’stdio.txt’ will be blank , ’logfile.txt’ will contain the error as before.

If we want to redirect stdout and stderr to the same file, we can use the file descriptor as
well:
Code
$ ls nosuchfile.txt > alloutput.txt 2>&1
Here ’2>&1’ means something like ’redirect stderr to the same file stdout has been redirected
to’. Be careful with the ordering! If you do it this way:
Code
$ ls nosuchfile.txt 2>&1 > alloutput.txt
you will redirect stderr to the file that stdout points to, then send stdout somewhere else
— and both streams will end up being redirected to different locations.
Special files
We said earlier that the redirect operators discussed so far all redirect to data files. While
this is technically true, Unix magic still means that there’s more to it than just that. You
see, the Unix file system tends to contain a number of special files called ”devices”, by
convention collected in the /dev directory. These device files include the files that represent
your hard drive, DVD player, USB stick and so on. They also include some special files,
like /dev/null (also known as the bit bucket; anything you write to this file is discarded).
You can redirect to device files as well as to regular data files. Be careful here; you really
75
Files and streams
don’t want to redirect raw text data to the boot sector of your hard drive (and you can!).
But if you know what you’re doing, you can use the device files by redirecting to them (this
is how DVDs are burned in Linux, for instance).
As an example of how you might actually use a device file, in the ’Solaris’ flavour of Unix
the loudspeaker and its microphone can be accessed by the file ’/dev/audio’. So:
Code
# cat /tmp/audio.au > /dev/audio
Will play a sound, whereas:

Code
# cat < /dev/audio > /tmp/mysound.au
Will record a sound.(you will need to CTRL-C this to finish...)

This is fun:
Code
# cat < /dev/audio > /dev/audio
Now wave the microphone around whilst shouting - Jimi Hendrix style feedback. Great
stuff. You will probably need to be logged in as ’root’ to try this by the way.
Some redirect warnings
The astute reader will have noticed one or two things in the discussion above. First of all, a
file can have more than just the standard streams associated with it. Is it legal to redirect
those? Is it even possible ? The answer is, technically, yes. You can redirect stream 4 or
5 of a file (if they exist). Don’t try it though. If there’s more than a few streams in any
direction, you won’t know which stream you’re redirecting. Plus, if a program needs more
than the standard streams it’s a good bet that program also needs its extra streams going
to a specific location.
Second, you might have noticed that file descriptor 0 is, by convention, the standard input
stream. Does that mean you can redirect a program’s standard input away from the
program? Could you do the following?
Code
$ cat 0> somewhere_else
The answer is, yes you can. And yes, things will break if you do.
6.3.2 Pipes, Tees and Named Pipes
So, after all this talk about redirecting to file, we finally get to it: general redirecting by
cross-connecting streams. The most general form of redirecting and the most powerful one
to boot. It’s called a pipe and is performed using the pipe operator ’|’. Pipes allow you to
join two processes together through a ”pipeline”, which directly connects the stdout of one
file to the stdin of another.
76
As an example let’s consider the ’grep’ command which returns a matching string, given a
keyword and some text to search. And let’s also use the ps command, which lists running
processes on the machine. If you give the command
Code
$ ps -eaf
it will generally list pagefuls of running processes on your machine, which you would have
to sift through manually to find what you want. Let’s say you are looking for a process
which you know contains the word ’oracle’; use the output of ’ps’ to pipe into grep, which
will only return the matching lines:
Code
$ ps -eaf | grep oracle
Now you will only get back the lines you need. What happens if there’s still loads of these ?
No problem, pipe the output to the command ’more’ (or ’pg’), which will pause your screen
if it fills up:
Code
$ ps -ef | grep oracle | more
What about if you want to kill all those processes? You need the ’kill’ program, plus the
process number for each process (the second column returned by the ps command). Easy:
Code
$ ps -ef | grep oracle | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9
In this command, ’ps’ lists the processes and ’grep’ narrows the results down to oracle. The
’awk’ tool pulls out the second column of each line. And ’xargs’ feeds each line, one at a
time, to ’kill’ as a command line argument.
Pipes can be used to link as many programs as you wish within reasonable limits (and we
don’t know what these limits are!)
Don’t forget you can still use the redirectors in combination:
Code
$ ps -ef | grep oracle > /tmp/myprocesses.txt
There is another useful mechanism that can be used with pipes: the ’tee’. To understand
tee, imagine a pipe shaped like a ’T’ - one input, two outputs:
Code
$ ps -ef | grep oracle | tee /tmp/myprocesses.txt
The ’tee’ will copy whatever is given to its stdin and redirect this to the argument given
(a file); it will also then send a further copy to its stdout - which means you can effectively
intercept the pipe, take a copy at this stage, and carry on piping up other commands; useful
maybe for outputting to a logfile, and copying to the screen.
A note on piped commands: piped processes run in parallel on the Unix environment.
Sometimes one process will be blocked, waiting for input from another process. But each
process in a pipeline is, in principle, running simultaneously with all the others.
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Files and streams
Named pipes
There is a variation on the in-line pipe which we have been discussing called the ’named
pipe’. A named pipe is actually a file with its own ’stdin’ and ’stdout’ - which you attach
processes to. This is useful for allowing programs to talk to each other, especially when you
don’t know exactly when one program will try and talk to the other (waiting for a backup
to finish etc.) and when you don’t want to write a complicated network-based listener or
do a clumsy polling loop.
To create a ’named pipe’, you use the ’mkfifo’ command (fifo=first in, first out; so data is
read out in the same order as it is written into).
Code
$ mkfifo mypipe
$
This creates a named pipe called ’mypipe’; next we can start using it.
This test is best run with two terminals logged in:
1. From ’terminal a’
Code
$ cat < mypipe
The ’cat’ will sit there waiting for an input.

2. From ’terminal b’
Code
$ cat myfile.txt > mypipe
$
This should finish immediately. Flick back to ’terminal a’; this will now have read from
the pipe and received an ’EOF’, and you will see the data on the screen; the command will
have finished, and you are back at the command prompt.
Now try the other way round:
1. From terminal ’b’
Code
$ cat myfile.txt > mypipe
This will now sit there, as there isn’t another process on the other end to ’drain’ the pipe -
it’s blocked.
2. From terminal ’a’
Code
$ cat < mypipe
As before, both processes will now finish, the output showing on terminal ’a’.
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Here documents
6.4 Here documents
So far we have looked at redirecting from and to data files and cross-connecting data streams.
All of these shell mechanisms are based on having a ”physical” source for data — a process
or a data file. Sometimes though, you want to feed some data into a target without having
a source for it. In these cases you can use an ”on the fly” document called a here document
. A here document means that you open a virtual text document (in memory), type into it
as usual, close it and then treat it like any normal file.
Creating a here document is done using a variation on the input redirect operator: the ’<<’
operator. Like the input redirect operator, the here document operator takes an argument.
For the input redirect operator this operand is the name of the file to be streamed in. For
the here document operator it is the string that will terminate the here document. So using
the here document operator looks like this:
Code
target << terminator string
here document contents
terminator string
For example:
Using a here document
Code
cat << %%
> This is a test.
> This test uses a here document.
> Hello world.
> This here document will end upon the occurrence of the string "%%" on a
separate line.
> So this document is still open now.
> But now it will end....
> %%
Output
is a test.
This test uses a here document.
Hello world.
This here document will end upon the occurrence of the string "%%" on a separate line.
So this document is still open now.
But now it will end....
When using here documents in combination with variable or command substitution, it is
important to realize that substitutions are carried out before the here document is passed
on. So for example:
Using a here document with substitutions
Code
79
Files and streams
$ COMMAND=cat
$ PARAM='Hello World!!'
$ $COMMAND <<%
> ècho $PARAM`
> %
Output
World!!
80
7 Modularization
If you’ve ever done any programming in a different environment than the shell, you’re
probably familiar with the following scenario: you’re writing your program, happily typing
away at the keyboard, until you notice that
• you have to repeat some code you typed earlier because your program has to perform
exactly the same actions in two different locations; or
• your program is just too long to understand anymore.
In other words, you’ve reached the point where it becomes necessary to divide your program
up into modules that can be run as separate subprograms and called as often as you like.
Working in the Bourne Shell is no different than working in any other language in this
respect. Sooner or later you’re going to find yourself writing a shell script that’s just too
long to be practical anymore. And the time will have come to divide your script up into
modules.
7.1 Named functions
Of course, the easy and obvious way to divide a script into modules is just to create a couple
of different shell scripts — just a few separate text files with executable permissions. But
using separate files isn’t always the most practical solution either. Spreading your script
over multiple files can make it hard to maintain. Especially if you end up with shell scripts
that aren’t really meaningful unless they are called specifically from one other, particular
shell script.
Especially for this situation the Bourne Shell includes the concept of a named function :
the possibility to associate a name with a command list and execute the command list by
using the name as a command. This is what it looks like:
Code
name () command group
name is a text string
and command group is any grouped command list (either with curly braces or parentheses)
This functionality is available throughout the shell and is useful in several situations. First
of all, you can use it to break a long shell script up into multiple modules. But second, you
can use it to define your own little macros in your own environment that you don’t want
to create a full script for. Many modern shells include a built-in command for this called
alias , but old-fashioned shells like the original Bourne Shell did not; you can use named
functions to accomplish the same result.
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Modularization
7.2 Creating a named function
7.2.1 Functions with a simple command group
Let’s start off simply by creating a function that prints ”Hello World!!”. And let’s call it
”hw”. This is what it looks like:
Hello world as a named function
hw() {
> echo 'Hello World!!';
>}
We can use exactly the same code in a shell script or in the interactive shell — the example
above is from the interactive shell. There are several things to notice about this example.
First of all, we didn’t need a separate keyword to define a function, just the parentheses
did it. To the shell, function definitions are like extended variable definitions. They’re part
of the environment; you set them just by defining a name and a meaning.
The second thing to note is that, once you’re past the parentheses, all the normal rules hold
for the command group. In our case we used a command group with braces, so we needed
the semicolon after the echo command. The string we want to print contains exclamation
points, so we have to quote it (as usual). And we were allowed to break the command group
across multiple lines, even in interactive mode, just like normal.
Here’s how you use the new function: Calling our function
Code
$ hw
Output
World!!
7.2.2 Functions that execute in a separate process
The definition of a function takes a command group. Any command group. Including
the command group with parentheses rather than braces. So if we want, we can define a
function that runs as a subprocess in its own environment as well. Here’s hello world again,
in a subprocess:
Hello world as a named function
hw() ( echo 'Hello World!!' )
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Creating a named function
It’s all on one line this time to keep it short, but the same rules apply as before. And of
course the same environment rules apply as well, so any variables defined in the function
will not be available anymore once the function ends.
7.2.3 Functions with parameters
If you’ve done any programming in a different programming language you know that the
most useful functions are those that take parameters. In other words, ones that don’t always
rigidly do the same thing but can be influenced by values passed in when the function is
called. So here’s an interesting question: can we pass parameters to a function? Can we
create a definition like
Code
(ARG0, ARG1) { do something with ARG0 and ARG1 }
And then make a call like ’functionWithParams(Hello, World)’ ? Well, the answer is simple:
no. The parenthese are just there as a flag for the shell to let it know that the previous
name is the name of a function rather than a variable and there is no room for parameters.
Or actually, it’s more a case of the above being the simple answer rather than the answer
being simple. You see, when you execute a function you are executing a command. To the
shell there’s really very little difference between executing a named function and executing
’ls’. It’s a command like any other. And it may not be able to have parameters, but like
any other command it can certainly have command line arguments . So we may not be able
to define a function with parameters like above, but we can certainly do this:
Functions with command-line arguments
Code
$ repeatOne () { echo $1; }

$ repeatOne 'Hello World!'
Output
World!
And you can use any other variable from the environment as well. Of course, that’s a nice
trick for when you’re calling a function from the command line in the interactive shell. But
what about in a shell script? The positional variables for command-line arguments are
already taken by the arguments to the shell script, right? Ah, but wait! Each command
executed in the shell (no matter how it was executed) has its own set of command-line
arguments! So there’s no interference and you can use the same mechanism. For example,
if we define a script like this:
83
Modularization
function.sh: A function in a shell script
!/bin/sh
myFunction() {
echo $1
}
echo $1
myFunction
myFunction "Hello World"
echo $1
Then it executes exactly the way we want:

Executing the function.sh script
Code
$ . function.sh 'Goodbye World!!'
Output
World!
Hello World
Goodbye World!
7.2.4 Functions in the environment
We’ve mentioned it before, but let’s delve a little deeper into it now: what are functions
exactly? We’ve hinted that they’re an alias for a command list or a macro and that they’re
part of the environment. But what is a function exactly?
A function, as far as the shell is concerned, is just a very verbose variable definition. And
that’s really all it is: a name (a text string) that is associated with a value (some more
text) and can be replaced by that value when the name is used. Just like a shell variable.
And we can prove it too: just define a function in the interactive shell, then give the ’set’
command (to list all the variable definitions in your current environment). Your function
will be in the list.
Because functions are really a special kind of shell variable definition, they behave exactly
the same way ”normal” variables do:
84
Creating a named function
• Functions are defined by listing their name, a definition operator and then the value of
the function. Functions use a different definition operator though: ’()’ instead of ’=’.
This tells the shell to add some special considerations to the function (like not needing
the ’$’ character when using the function).
• Functions are part of the environment. That means that when commands are issued from
the shell, functions are also copied into the copy of the environment that is given to the
issued command.
• Functions can also be passed to new subprocesses if they are marked for export, using the
’export’ command. Some shells will require a special command-line argument to ’export’
for functions (bash, for instance, requires you to do an ’export -f’ to export functions).
• You can drop function definitions by using the ’unset’ command.
Of course, when you use them functions behave just like commands (they are expanded into
a command list, after all). We’ve already seen that you can use command-line arguments
with functions and the positional variables to match. But you can also redirect1 input and
output to and from commands and pipe commands together as well.
85
8 Debugging and signal handling
In the previous sections we’ve told you all about the Bourne Shell and how to write scripts
using the shell’s language. We’ve been careful to include all the details we could think of
so you will be able to write the best scripts you can. But no matter how carefully you’ve
paid attention and no matter how carefully you write your scripts, the time will come to
pass when something you’ve written simply will not work — no matter how sure you are it
should. So how do you proceed from here?
In this module we cover the tools the Bourne Shell provides to deal with the unexpected.
Unexpected behavior of your script (for which you must debug the script) and unexpected
behavior around your script (caused by signals being delivered to your script by the oper-
ating system).
8.1 Debugging Flags
So here you are, in the middle of the night having just finished a long and complicated shell
script, just poured your heart and soul into it for three days straight while living on nothing
but coffee, cola and pizza... and it just won’t work. Somewhere in there is a bug that is
just eluding you. Something is going wrong, some unexpected behavior has popped up or
something else is driving you crazy. So how are you going to debug this script? Sure, you
can pump it full of ’echo’ commands and debug that way, but isn’t there an easier way?
Generally speaking the most insightful way to debug any program is to follow the execution
of the program along statement by statement to see what the program is doing exactly. The
most advanced form of this (offered by modern IDEs) allows you to trace into a program
by stopping the execution at a certain point and examining its internal state. The Bourne
Shell is, unfortunately, not that advanced. But it does offer the next best thing: command
tracing. The shell can print each and every command as it is being executed.
The tracing functionality (there are two of them) is activated using either the ’set’ command
or by passing parameters directly to the shell executable when it is called. In either case
you can use the -x parameter, the -v parameter or both.
-v
Turns on verbose mode; each command is printed by the shell as it is read.
-x
This turns on command tracing; every command is printed by the shell as it is executed.
87
Debugging and signal handling
8.1.1 Debugging
Let’s consider the following script:
divider.sh: Script with a potential error
!/bin/sh
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
echo $DIVISOR
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
Let’s execute this script and not pass in a command-line argument (so we use the default
value 0 for the DIVISOR variable):
Running the script
Code
$ sh divider.sh
Output
0
expr: division by zero
Of course it’s not too hard to figure out what went wrong in this case, but let’s take a closer
look anyway. Let’s see what the shell executed, using the -x parameter:
Running the script with tracing on
Code
$ sh -x divider.sh
Output
+ DIVISOR=0
+ echo 0
+ expr 12 / 0
So indeed, clearly the shell tried to have a division by zero evaluated. Just in case we’re
confused about where the zero came from, let’s see which commands the shell actually read:
88
Debugging Flags
Running the script in verbose mode

Code
$ sh -v divider.sh
Output
#!/bin/sh
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
echo $DIVISOR
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
So obviously, the script read a command with a variable substitution that didn’t work out
very well. If we combine these two parameters the resulting output tells the whole, sad
story:
Running the script with maximum debugging
Code
$ sh -xv divider.sh
Output
#!/bin/sh
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
+ DIVISOR=0
echo $DIVISOR
+ echo 0
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
+ expr 12 / 0
89
There is another parameter that you can use to debug your script, the -n parameter. This
causes the shell to read the commands but not execute them. You can use this parameter
to do a syntax checking run of your script.
8.1.2 Places to put your parameters
As you saw in the previous section, we used the shell parameters by passing them in as
command-line parameters to the shell executable. But couldn’t we have put the parameters
inside the script itself? After all, there is an interpreter hint in there... And surely enough,
we can do exactly that. Let’s modify the script a little and try it.
The same script, but now with parameters to the interpreter hint
!/bin/sh -xv
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
echo $DIVISOR
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
Running the script

Code
$ chmod +x divider.sh
$ ./divider.sh
Output
#!/bin/sh
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
+ DIVISOR=0
echo $DIVISOR
+ echo 0
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
90
Debugging Flags
+ expr 12 / 0
So there’s no problem there. But there is a little gotcha. Let’s try running the script again:
Running the script again
Code
$ sh divider.sh
Output
0
So what happened to the debugging that time? Well, you have remember that the inter-
preter hint is used when you try to execute the script as an executable in its own right.
But in the last example, we weren’t doing that. In the last example we called the shell our-
selves and passed it the script as a parameter. So the shell executed without any debugging
activated. It would have worked if we’d done a ”sh -xv divider.sh” though.
What about sourcing the script (i.e. using the dot notation)?
Code
$ . divider.sh
Output
0
This time the script was executed by the same shell process that is running the interactive
shell for us. And the same principle applies: no debugging there either. Because the
interactive shell was not started with debugging flags. But we can fix that as well; this is
where the ’set’ command comes in:
Code
$ set -xv
$ . divider.sh
Output
91
. divider.sh
+ . divider.sh
#!/bin/sh -vx
DIVISOR=${1:-0}
++ DIVISOR=0
echo $DIVISOR
++ echo 0
expr 12 / $DIVISOR
++ expr 12 / 0
And now we have debugging active in the interactive shell and we get a full trace of the
script. In fact, we even get a trace of the interactive shell calling the script! But now what
happens if we start a new shell process with debugging on in the interactive shell? Does it
carry over?
Code
$ sh divider.sh
Output
divider.sh
+ sh divider.sh
92
Breaking out of a script
Well, we certainly get a trace of the script being called, but no trace of the script itself. The
moral of the story is: when debugging, make sure you know which shell you’re activating
the trace in.
By the way, to turn tracing in the interactive shell off again you can either do a ’set +xv’
or simply a ’set -’.
8.2 Breaking out of a script
When writing or debugging a shell script it is sometimes useful to exit out (to stop the
execution of the script) at certain points. You use the ’exit’ built-in command to do this.
The command looks simply like this:
Code
exit [n ]
Where n (optional) is the exit status of the script.
If you leave off the optional exit status, the exit status of the script will be the exit status
of the last command that executed before the call to ’exit’.
For example:
Exiting from a script
!/bin/sh -x
echo hello
exit 1
If you run this script and then test the output status, you will see (using the ”$?” built-in
variable):
Checking the exit status
Code
echo $?
Output
1
There’s one thing to look out for when using ’exit’: ’exit’ actually terminates the executing
process. So if you’re executing an executable script with an interpreter hint or have called
the shell explicitly and passed in your script as an argument that is fine. But if you’ve
sourced the script (used the dot-notation), then your script is being run by the process
running your interactive shell. So you may inadvertently terminate your shell session and
log yourself out by using the ’exit’ command!
There’s a variation on ’exit’ meant specifically for blocks of code that are not processes of
their own. This is the ’return’ command, which is very similar to the ’exit’ command:
93
Code
return [n ]
Where n (optional) is the exit status of the block.
Return has exactly the same semantics as ’exit’, but is primarily intended for use in shell
functions (it makes a function return without terminating the script). Here’s an example:
exit_and_return.sh: A script with a function and an explicit return
!/bin/sh
sayHello() {
echo 'Hi there!!'
return 2
}
echo 'Hello World!!'

sayHello
echo $?
echo 'Goodbye!!'
exit
If we run this script, we see the following:

Running the script
Code
./exit_and_return.sh
Output
World!!
Hi there!!
Goodbye!!
The function returned with a testable exit status of 2. The overall exit status of the script
is zero though, since the last command executed by the script (’echo Goodbye!!’) exited
without errors.
You can also use a ’return’ statement to exit a shell script that you executed by sourcing
it (the script will be run by the process that runs the interactive shell, so that’s not a
subprocess). But it’s usually not a good idea, since this will limit your script to being
sourced: if you try to run it any other way, the fact that you used a ’return’ statement
alone will cause an error.
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Signal trapping
8.3 Signal trapping
A syntax, command error or call to ’exit’ is not the only thing that can stop your script
from executing. The process that runs your script might also suddenly receive a signal from
the operating system. Signals are a simple form of event notification: think of a signal as a
little light suddenly popping on in your room, to let you know that somebody outside the
room wants your attention. Only it’s not just one light. The Unix system usually allows
for lots of different signals so it’s more like having a wall full of little lamps, each of which
could suddenly start blinking.
On a single-process operating system like MS-DOS, life was simple. The environment was
single-process, meaning your code (once running) had complete machine control. Any signal
arriving was always a hardware interrupt (e.g. the computer signalling that the floppy disk
was ready to read) and you could safely ignore all those signals if you didn’t need external
hardware; either it was some device event you weren’t interested in, or something was really
wrong — in which case the computer was crashing anyway and there was nothing you could
do.
On a Unix system, life is not so easy. On Unix, signals can come from all over the place
(including other programs). And you never have complete control of the system either. A
signal may be a hardware interrupt, or another program signalling, or the user who got fed
up with waiting, logged in to a second shell session and is now ordering your process to
die. On the bright side, life is still not too complicated. Most Unix systems (and certainly
the Bourne Shell) come with default handling for most signals. Usually you can still safely
ignore signals and let the shell or the OS deal with them. In fact, if the signal in question
is number 9 (loosely translated: KILL!! KILL!! DIE!! DIE, RIGHT NOW!! ), you
probably should ignore it and let the OS kill your process.
But sometimes you just have to do your own signal handling. That might be because you’ve
been working with files and want to do some cleanup before your process dies. Or because
the signal is part of your multi-process program design (e.g. listening for signal 16, which
is ”user-defined signal 1”). Which is why the Bourne Shell gives us the ’trap’ command.
8.3.1 Trap
The trap command is actually quite simple (especially if you’ve ever done event-driven
programming of any kind). Essentially the trap command says ”if one of the following
signals is received by this process, do this”. It looks like this:
Code
trap [command string ] signal0 [signal1 ] ...
command string is a string containing the commands to execute if a signal is trapped
and signaln is a signal to be trapped.

For example, to trap user-defined signal 1 (commonly referred to as SIGUSR1) and print
”Hello World” whenever it comes along, you would do this:
95
Trapping SIGUSR1
$ trap "echo Hello World" 16
Most Unix systems also allow you to use symbolic names (we’ll get back to these a little
later). So you can probably also do this:
Trapping SIGUSR1 (little easier)
$ trap "echo Hello World" SIGUSR1
And if you can do that, you can usually also do this:
Trapping SIGUSR1 (even easier)
$ trap "echo Hello World" USR1
The command string passed to ’trap’ is a string that contains a command list. It’s not
treated as a command list though; it’s just a string and it isn’t interpreted until a signal is
caught. The command string can be any of the following:
A string
A string containing a command list. Any and all commands are allowed and you can use
multiple commands separated by semicolons as well (i.e. a command list).
’<nowiki/>’
The empty string. Actually this is the same as the previous case, since this is the empty
command string. This causes the shell to execute nothing when a signal is trapped — in
other words, to ignore the signal.
Nothing, the null string. This resets the signal handling to the default signal action (which
is usually ”kill process”).
Following the command list you can list as many signals as you want to be associated with
that command list. The traps that you set up in this manner are valid for every command
that follows the ’trap’ command.
Right about now it’s probably a good idea to look at an example to clear things up a bit.
You can use ’trap’ anywhere (as usual) including the interactive shell. But most of the time
you will want to introduce traps into a script rather than into your interactive shell process.
Let’s create a simple script that uses the ’trap’ command:
96
Signal trapping
A simple signal trap
!/bin/sh
trap 'echo Hello World' SIGUSR1
while [ 1 -gt 0 ]
do
echo Running....
sleep 5
done
This script in and of itself is an endless loop, which prints ”Running...” and then sleeps for
five seconds. But we’ve added a ’trap’ command (before the loop, otherwise the trap would
never be executed and it wouldn’t affect the loop) that prints ”Hello World” whenever the
process receives the SIGUSR1 signal. So let’s start the process by running the script:
Infinite loop...
Code
$ ./trap_signal.sh
Output
....
Running....
Running....
Running....
Running....
Running....
...
To spring the trap, we must send the running process a signal. To do that, log into a new
shell session and use a process tool (like ’ps’) to find the correct process id (PID):
Finding the process ID
Code
$ ps -ef | grep signal
Output
10865 7067 0 15:08 pts/0 00:00:00 /bin/sh ./trap_signal.sh
bzt 10808 10415 0 15:12 pts/1 00:00:00 fgrep signal
97
Now, to send a signal to that process, we use the ’kill’ command which is built into the
Bourne Shell:
Code
kill [-signal ] ID [ID ] ...
-signal is the signal to send (optional; default is 15, or SIGTERM)
and ID are the PIDs of the processes to send the signal to (at least one of them)
As the name suggests, ’kill’ was actually intended to kill processes (this fits with the default
signal being SIGTERM and the default signal handler being terminate). But in fact what
it does is nothing more than send a signal to a process. So for example, we can send a
SIGUSR1 to our process like this:
Let’s trip the trap...
Code
kill -SIGUSR1 10865
Output
...
Running....
Running....
Running....
Running....
Running....
Hello World
Running....
Running....
...
You might notice that there’s a short pause before ”Hello World!” appears; it won’t happen
until the running ’sleep’ command is done. But after that, there it is. But you might be a
little surprised: the signal didn’t kill the process. That’s because ’trap’ completely replaces
the signal handler with the commands you set up. And an ’echo Hello World’ alone won’t
kill a process... The lesson here is a simple one: if you want your signal trap to terminate
your process, make sure you include an ’exit’ command.
Between having multiple commands in your command list and potentially trapping lots of
signals, you might be worried that a ’trap’ statement can become messy. Fortunately, you
can also use shell functions as commands in a ’trap’. The following example illustrates that
and the difference between an exiting event handler and a non-exiting event handler:
98
Signal trapping
A trap with a shell function as a handler
!/bin/sh
exitw ithg race() {

echo Goodbye W orld
exit
}
trap ”exitw ithg race” U SR1 T ERM QU IT

trap ”echo Hello W orld” U SR2
while [ 1 −gt 0 ]
do
echo Running....
sleep 5
done
8.3.2 System signals
Here’s the official definition of a signal from the POSIX-1003 2001 edition standard:
A mechanism by which a process or thread may be notified of, or affected by, an

event occurring in the system.
Examples of such events include hardware exceptions and specific actions by

processes.
The term signal is also used to refer to the event itself.
In other words, a signal is some sort of short message that is sent from one process (possible
a system process) to another. But what does that mean exactly? What does a signal look
like? The definition given above is kind of vague...
If you have any feel for what happens in computing when you give a vague definition, you
already know the answer to the questions above: every Unix flavor that was developed
came up with its own definition of ”signal”. They pretty much all settled on a message
that consists of an integer (because that’s simple), but not exactly the same list every-
where. Then there was some standardization and Unix systems organized themselves
into the System V and BSD flavors and at last everybody agreed on the following definition:
The system signals are the signals listed in /usr/include/sys/signal.h .
God, that’s helpful...
99
Since then a lot has happened, including the definition of the POSIX-1003 standard. This
standard, which standardizes most of the Unix interfaces (including the shell in part 1
(1003.1)) finally came up with a standard list of symbolic signal names and default handlers.
So usually, nowadays, you can make use of that list and expect your script to work on most
systems. Just be aware that it’s not completely fool-proof...
POSIX-1003 defines the signals listed in the table below. The values given are the typical
numeric values, but they aren’t mandatory and you shouldn’t rely on them (but then again,
you use symbolic values in order not to use actual values).
POSIX system signals

Signal Default action Description Typical
value(s)
SIGABRT Abort with core dump Abort process and 6
generate a core
dump
SIGALRM Terminate Alarm clock. 14
SIGBUS Abort with core dump Access to an unde- 7, 10
fined portion of a
memory object.
SIGCHLD Ignore Child process termi- 20, 17, 18
nated, stopped
SIGCONT Continue process (if Continue executing, 19,18,25
stopped) if stopped.
SIGFPE Abort with core dump Erroneous arith- 8
metic operation.
SIGHUP Terminate Hangup. 1
SIGILL Abort with core dump Illegal instruction. 4
SIGINT Terminate Terminal interrupt 2
signal.
SIGKILL Terminate Kill (cannot be 9
caught or ignored).
SIGPIPE Terminate Write on a pipe 13
with no one to read
it (i.e. broken pipe).
SIGQUIT Terminate Terminal quit sig- 3
nal.
SIGSEGV Abort with core dump Invalid memory ref- 11
erence.
SIGSTOP Stop process Stop executing 17,19,23
(cannot be caught
or ignored).
SIGTERM Terminate Termination signal. 15
SIGTSTP Stop process Terminal stop sig- 18,20,24
nal.
SIGTTIN Stop process Background process 21,21,26
attempting read.
SIGTTOU Stop process Background process 22,22,27
attempting write.
100
Signal trapping
POSIX system signals

Signal Default action Description Typical
value(s)
SIGUSR1 Terminate User-defined signal 30,10,16
1.
SIGUSR2 Terminate User-defined signal 31,12,17
2.
SIGPOLL Terminate Pollable event. -
SIGPROF Terminate Profiling timer ex- 27,27,29
pired.
SIGSYS Abort with core dump Bad system call. 12
SIGTRAP Abort with core dump Trace/breakpoint 5
trap
SIGURG Ignore High bandwidth 16,23,21
data is available at
a socket.
SIGVTALRM Terminate Virtual timer ex- 26,28
pired.
SIGXCPU Abort with core dump CPU time limit ex- 24,30
ceeded.
SIGXFSZ Abort with core dump File size limit ex- 25,31
ceeded.
Earlier on1 we talked about job control and suspending and resuming jobs. Job suspension
and resuming is actually completely based on sending signals to processes, so you can in
fact control job stopping and starting completely using ’kill’ and the signal list. To suspend
a process, send it the SIGSTOP signal. To resume, send it the SIGCONT signal.
8.3.3 Err... ERR?
If you go online and read about ’trap’, you might come across another kind of ”signal” which
is called ERR . It’s used with ’trap’ the same way regular signals are, but it isn’t really a
signal at all. It’s used to trap command errors (i.e. non-zero exit statuses), like this:
Error trapping
Code
$ trap 'echo HELLO WORLD' ERR

$ expr 1 / 0
Output
: division by zero
101
HELLO WORLD
So why didn we cover this ”signal” earlier, when we were discussing ’trap’2 ? Well, we saved
it until the discussion on system and non-system signals for a reason: ERR isn’t standard
at all. It was added by the Korn Shell to make life easier, but not adopted by the POSIX
standard and it certainly isn’t part of the original Bourne Shell. So if you use it, remember
that your script may not be portable anymore.
102
9 Cookbook
action=edit&section=new}} Post a new Cookbook entry]

If you use the title box, then you do not need to put a title in the body.
9.1 Branch on extensions
When writing a bash script which should do different things based on the extension of a
file, the following pattern is helpful.
#filepath should be set to the name(with optional path) of the file in question
ext=${filepath##*.}
if [[ "$ext" == txt ]] ; then
#do something with text files
fi
(Source: slike.com Bash FAQ1 ).
9.2 Rename several files
This recipe shows how to rename several files following a pattern.

In this example, the user has huge collection of screenshots. This user wants to rename
the files using a Bourne-compatible shell. Here is an ”ls” at the shell prompt to show you
the filenames. The goal is to rename images like ”snapshot1.png” to ”nethack-kernigh-
22oct2005-01.png”2 .
$ ls
snapshot1.png snapshot25.png snapshot40.png snapshot56.png snapshot71.png
http://www.splike.com/howtos/bash_faq.html#Get+a+file%27s+basename%2C+dirname%2C+
1
extension%2C+etc%3F
2 http://en.commons.org/wiki/Image%3Anethack-kernigh-22oct2005-01.png
103
Cookbook

snapshot23.png snapshot39.png snapshot54.png snapshot7.png
snapshot24.png snapshot4.png snapshot55.png snapshot70.png
First, to add a ”0” (zero) before snapshots 1 through 9, write a for loop (in effect, a short
shell script).
• Use ? which is a filename pattern for a single character. Using it, I can match snapshots
1 through 9 but miss 10 through 83 by saying snapshot?.png .
• Use ${ parameter # pattern } to substitute the value of parameter with the pattern removed
from the beginning. This is to get rid of ”snapshot” so I can put in ”snapshot0”.
• Before actually running the loop, insert an ”echo” to test that the commands will be
correct.
$ for i in snapshot?.png; do echo mv "$i" "snapshot0${i#snapshot}"; done
mv snapshot1.png snapshot01.png
That seems good, so run it by removing the ”echo”.
$ for i in snapshot?.png; do mv "$i" "snapshot0${i#snapshot}"; done
An ls confirms that this was effective.

Now change prefix ”snapshot” to ”nethack-kernigh-22oct2005-”. Run a loop similar to the
previous one:
$ for i in snapshot*.png; do
> mv "$i" "nethack-kernigh-22oct2005-${i#snapshot}"
> done
This saves the user from typing 83 ”mv” commands.
9.3 Long command line options
The builtin getopts does not support long options so the external getopt is required. (On
some systems, getopt also does not support long options, so the next example will not
work.)
eval set -- $(getopt -l install-opts: "" "$@")

while true; do
case "$1" in
104
Process certain files through xargs
--install-opts)
INSTALL_OPTS=$2
shift 2
;;
--)
shift
break
;;
esac
done
echo $INSTALL_OPTS
The call to getopt quotes and reorders the command line arguments found in $@ . set
then makes replaces $@ with the output from getopt
Another example of getopt use can also be found in the Advanced Bash Script Guide3
9.4 Process certain files through xargs
In this recipe, we want to process a large list of files, but we must run one command for
each file. In this example, we want to convert the sampling rates of some sound files to
44100 hertz. The command is sox file.ogg -r 44100 conv/file.ogg , which converts
file.ogg to a new file conv/file.ogg . We also want to skip files that are already 44100
hertz.
First, we need the sampling rates of our files. One way is to use the file command:
$ file *.ogg
audio_on.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, mono, 44100 Hz, ˜80000 bps
beep_1.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, stereo, 44100 Hz, ˜193603 bps
cannon_1.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, mono, 48000 Hz, ˜96000 bps
...
(The files in this example are from Secret Maryo Chronicles4 .) We can use grep -v to
filter out all lines that contain ’44100 Hz’:
$ file *.ogg | grep -v ’44100 Hz ’

cannon_1.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, mono, 48000 Hz, ˜96000 bps
...
jump_small.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, mono, 8000 Hz, ˜22400 bps
live_up.ogg: Ogg data, Vorbis audio, mono, 22050 Hz, ˜40222 bps
...
We finished with ”grep” and ”file”, so now we want to remove the other info and leave only
the filenames to pass to ”sox”. We use the text utility cut . The option -d: divides each
line into fields at the colon; -f1 selects the first field.
3 http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/extmisc.html#EX33A
4 http://www.secretmaryo.org/
105
Cookbook
$ file *.ogg | grep -v ’44100 Hz’ | cut -d: -f1

cannon_1.ogg
...
jump_small.ogg
live_up.ogg
...
We can use another pipe to supply the filenames on the standard input, but ”sox” expects
them as arguments. We use xargs , which will run a command repeatedly using arguments
from the standard input. The -n1 option specifies one argument per command. For
example, we can run echo sox repeatedly:
$ file *.ogg | grep -v ’44100 Hz’ | cut -d: -f1 | xargs -n1 echo sox
sox cannon_1.ogg
...
sox itembox_set.ogg
sox jump_small.ogg
...
However, these commands are wrong. The full command for cannon_1.ogg, for example,
is sox cannon_1.ogg -r 44100 conv/cannon_1.ogg . ”xargs” will insert incoming data
into placeholders indicated by ”{}”. We use this strategy in our pipeline. If we have doubt,
then first we can build a test pipeline with ”echo”:
$ file *.ogg | grep -v ’44100 Hz’ | cut -d: -f1 | \

> xargs -i ’echo sox {} -r 44100 conv/{} ’
sox cannon_1.ogg -r 44100 conv/cannon_1.ogg
...
sox itembox_set.ogg -r 44100 conv/itembox_set.ogg
sox jump_small.ogg -r 44100 conv/jump_small.ogg
...
It worked, so let us remove the ”echo” and run the ”sox” commands:
$ mkdir conv
$ file *.ogg | grep -v ’44100 Hz’ | cut -d: -f1 | \
> xargs -i ’sox {} -r 44100 conv/{} ’
After a wait, the converted files appear in the conv subdirectory. The above three lines
alone did the entire conversion.
9.5 Simple playlist frontend for GStreamer
If you have GStreamer, the command gst-launch filesrc location=filename !

decodebin ! audioconvert ! esdsink will play a sound or music file of any format for
which you have a GStreamer plugin. This script will play through a list of files, optionally
looping through them. (Replace ”esdsink” with your favorite sink.)
106
Simple playlist frontend for GStreamer
#!/bin/sh
loop=false
if test x"$1" == x-l; then
loop=true
shift
fi
while true; do
for i in "$@"; do
if test -f "$i"; then
echo "${0##*/}: playing $i" > /dev/stderr
gst-launch filesrc location="$i" ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! esdsink
else
echo "${0##*/}: not a file: $i" > /dev/stderr
fi
done
if $loop; then true; else break; fi
done
This script demonstrates some common Bourne shell tactics:

• ”loop” is a boolean variable. It works because its values ”true” and ”false” are both Unix
commands (and sometimes shell builtins), thus you can use them as conditions in if and
while statements.
• The shell builtin ”shift” removes $1 from the argument list, thus shifting $2 to $1, $3 to
$2, and so forward. This script uses it to process an ”-l” option.
• The substitution ${0##*/} gives everything in $0 after the last slash, thus ”playlist”, not
”/home/musicfan/bin/playlist”.
107
10 Quick Reference
This final section provides a fast lookup reference for the materials in this document. It is a
collection of thumbnail examples and rules that will be cryptic if you haven’t read through
the text.
10.1 Useful commands
Command Effect
cat Lists a file or files sequentially.
cd Change directories.
chmod ugo+rwx Set read, write and execute permissions for user, group and
others.
chmod a-rwx Remove read, write and execute permissions from all.
chmod 755 Set user write and universal read-execute permissions
chmod 644 set user write and universal read permissions.
cp Copy files.
expr 2 + 2 Add 2 + 2.
fgrep Search for string match.
grep Search for string pattern matches.
grep -v Search for no match.
grep -n List line numbers of matches.
grep -i Ignore case.
grep -l Only list file names for a match.
head -n5 source.txt List first 5 lines.
less View a text file one screen at a time; can scroll both ways.
ll Give a listing of files with file details.
ls Give a simple listing of files.
mkdir Make a directory.
more Displays a file a screenfull at a time.
mv Move or rename files.
paste f1 f2 Paste files by columns.
pg Variant on ”more”.
pwd Print working directory.
rm Remove files.
rm -r Remove entire directory subtree.
rmdir Remove an empty directory.
sed ’s/txt/TXT/g’ Scan and replace text.
sed ’s/txt/d’ Scan and delete text.
109
Quick Reference
Command Effect
sed ’/txt/q’ Scan and then quit.
sort Sort input.
sort +1 Skip first field in sorting.
sort -n Sort numbers.
sort -r Sort in reverse order.
sort -u Eliminate redundant lines in output.
tail -5 source.txt List last 5 lines.
tail +5 source.txt List all lines after line 5.
tr ’[A-Z]’ ’[a-z]’ Translate to lowercase.
tr ’[a-z]’ ’[A-Z]’ Translate to uppercase.
tr -d ’_’ Delete underscores.
uniq Find unique lines.
wc Word count (characters, words, lines).
wc -w Word count only.
wc -l Line count.
10.2 Elementary shell capabilities
Command Effect
Initialize a shell variable.
echo $shvar Display a shell variable.
export shvar Allow subshells to use shell variable.
mv $f ${f}2 or mv ${f}{,2} Append ”2” to file name in shell variable.
$1, $2, $3, ... Command-line arguments.
$0 Shell-program name.
$# Number of arguments.
$* Complete argument list (all in one string).
$@ Complete argument list (string for every argument).
$? Exit status of the last command executed.
shift 2 Shift argument variables by 2.
read v Read input into variable ”v”.
. mycmds Execute commands in file.
10.3 IF statement
The if statement executes the command between if and then . If the command returns
not 0 then the commands between then and else are executed - otherwise the command
between else and fi .
if test "${1}" = "red" ; then

echo "Illegal code."
elif test "${1}" = "blue" ; then
else
110
IF statement
echo "Access granted."

fi
if [ "$1" = "red" ]
then
elif [ "$1" = "blue" ]
then
else
echo "Access granted."
fi
Test Syntax Variations
Most test commands can be written using more than one syntax. Mastering and consistently
using one form may be a programming best-practice, and may be a more efficient use of
overall time.
String Tests
String Tests are performed by the test command. See help test for more details. To make
scripts look more like other programming languages the synonym [ ... ] was defined which
does exactly the same as test .
Command Effect
test ”$shvar” = ”red” String comparison, true if match.
[ ”$shvar” = ”red” ]
test ”$shvar” != ”red” String comparison, true if no match.
[ ”$shvar” != ”red” ]
test -z ”${shvar}” True if null variable.
test ”$shvar” = ” ”
[ ”$shvar” = ” ” ]
test -n ”${shvar}” True if not null variable.
test ”$shvar” != ” ”
[ -n ”$shvar” ]
[ ”$shvar” != ” ” ]
Arithmetic tests
simple arithmetics can be performed with the test for more complex arithmetics the let
command exists. See help let for more details. Note that for let command variables
don’t need to be prefixed with ’$’ and the statement need to be one argument, use '...'
when there are spaces inside the argument. Like with test a synonym - (( ... )) - was
defined to make shell scripts look more like ordinary programs.
Command Effect
111
Quick Reference
Command Effect
test ”$nval” -eq 0 Integer test; true if equal to 0.
let ’nval == 0’
[ ”$nval” -eq 0 ]
(( nval == 0 ))
test ”$nval” -ge 0 Integer test; true if greater than or equal to 0.
let ’nval >= 0’
[ ”$nval” -ge 0 ]
(( nval >= 0 ))
test ”$nval” -gt 0 Integer test; true if greater than 0.
let ’nval > 0’
[ ”$nval” -gt 0 ]
(( nval > 0 ))
test ”$nval” -le 0 Integer test; true if less than or equal to 0.
let ’nval <= 0’
[ ”$nval” -le 0 ]
(( nval <= 0 ))
test ”$nval” -lt 0 Integer test; true if less than to 0.
let ’nval < 0’
[ ”$nval” -lt 0 ]
(( nval < 0 ))
test ”$nval” -ne 0 Integer test; true if not equal to 0.
let ’nval != 0’
[ ”$nval” -ne 0 ]
(( nval != 0 ))
let ’y + y > 100’ Integer test; true when x + y ≥ 0
(( y + y >= 100))
File tests
Command Effect
test -d tmp True if ”tmp” is a directory.
[ -d tmp ]
test -f tmp True if ”tmp” is an ordinary file.
[ -f tmp ]
test -r tmp True if ”tmp” can be read.
[ -r tmp ]
test -s tmp True if ”tmp” is nonzero length.
[ -s tmp ]
test -w tmp True if ”tmp” can be written.
[ -w tmp ]
test -x tmp True if ”tmp” is executable.
[ -x tmp ]
112
CASE statement
Boolean tests
Boolean arithmetic is performed by a set of operators. It is important to note then the

operators execute programs and compare the result codes. Because boolean operators are
often combined with test command a unifications was created in the form of [[ ... ]] .
Command Effect
test -d /tmp && test -r /tmp True if ”/tmp” is a directory and can be
[[ -d /tmp && -r /tmp ]] read.
test -r /tmp || test -w /tmp[[ -r /tmp || -w True if ”tmp” can be read or written.
/tmp ]]
test ! -x /tmp True if the file is not executable
[[ ! -x /tmp ]]
10.4 CASE statement
case "$1"
in
"red") echo "Illegal code."
exit;;
"blue") echo "Illegal code."
exit;;
"x"|"y") echo "Illegal code."
exit;;
*) echo "Access granted.";;
esac
10.5 Loop statements

for nvar in 1 2 3 4 5
do
echo $nvar
done
for file # Cycle through command-line arguments.

do
echo $file
done
while [ "$n" != "Joe" ] # Or: until [ "$n" == "Joe" ]

do
echo "What's your name?"
read n
echo $n
done
There are ”break” and ”continue” commands that allow you to exit or skip to the end of
loops as the need arises.
Instead of [] we can use test. [] requires space after and before the brackets and there should
be spaces between arguments.
113
Quick Reference
10.6 Credit
This content was originally from http://www.vectorsite.net/tsshell.html and was

originally in the public domain.
114
11 Command Reference
The Bourne Shell offers a large number of built-in commands that you can use in your shell
scripts. The following table gives an overview:
Bourne Shell command reference

Command Description
: A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.
. file Execute. The commands in the specified file are
read and executed by the shell. Commonly re-
ferred to as sourcing a file.
# Ignore all the text until the end of the line. Used
to create comments in shell scripts.
#!shell Interpreter hint. Indicates to the OS which inter-
preter to use to execute a script.
bg [job] ... Run the specified jobs (or the current job if no
arguments are given) in the background.
break [n] Break out of a loop. If a number argument is
specified, break out of n levels of loops.
case See ../Control flow1
cd [directory] Switch to the specified directory (default
$HOME).
continue [n] Skip the remaining commands in a loop and con-
tinue the loop at the next interation. If an integer
argument is specified, skip n loops.
echo string Write string to the standard output.
eval string ... Concatenate all the arguments with spaces. Then
re-parse and execute the command.
exec [command arg ...] Execute command in the current process.
exit [exitstatus] Terminate the shell process. If exitstatus is given
it is used as the exit status of the shell; otherwise
the exit status of the last completed command is
used.
export name ... Mark the named variables or functions for export
to child process environments.
fg [job] Move the specified job (or the current job if not
specified) to the foreground.
for See ../Control flow2 .
115
Command Reference

Command Description
hash -rv command ... The shell maintains a hash table which remembers
the locations of commands. With no arguments
whatsoever, the hash command prints out the con-
tents of this table. Entries which have not been
looked at since the last cd command are marked
with an asterisk; it is possible for these entries to
be invalid.With arguments, the hash command re-
moves the specified commands from the hash table
(unless they are functions) and then locates them.
The -r option causes the hash command to delete
all the entries in the hash table except for func-
tions.
if See ../Control flow3 .
jobs This command lists out all the background pro-
cesses which are children of the current shell pro-
cess.
-signal ] PID ... Send signal to the jobs listed by ID. If no signal is
specified, send SIGTERM.If the -l option is used,
lists all the signal names defined on the system.
newgrp [group] Temporarily move your user to a new group. If no
group is listed, move back to your user’s default
group.
pwd Print the working directory.
read variable [...] Read a line from the input and assign each indi-
vidual word to a listed variable (in order). Any
leftover words are assigned to the last variable.
readonly name ... Make the listed variables read-only.
return [n] Return from a shell function. If an integer argu-
ment is specified it will be the exit status of the
function.
set [{ -options | +options | -- }] The set command performs three different func-
arg ... tions.With no arguments, it lists the values of all
shell variables.If options are given, it sets the spec-
ified option flags or clears them.The third use of
the set command is to set the values of the shell’s
positional parameters to the specified args. To
change the positional parameters without chang-
ing any options, use “--” as the first argument to
set. If no args are present, the set command will
clear all the positional parameters (equivalent to
executing “shift $#”.)
shift [n] Shift the positional parameters n times.
test See ../Control flow4 .
116
Credit

Command Description
trap [action] signal ... Cause the shell to parse and execute action when
any of the specified signals are received.
type [name ...] Show whether a command is a UNIX command, a
shell built-in command or a shell function.
ulimit Report on or set resource limits.
umask [mask] Set the value of umask (the mask for the default
file permissions not assigned to newly created
files). If the argument is omitted, the umask value
is printed.
unset name ... Drop the definition of the given names in the shell.
wait [job] Wait for the specified job to complete and return
the exit status of the last process in the job. If the
argument is omitted, wait for all jobs to complete
and the return an exit status of zero.
while See ../Control flow5 .
117
12 Environment reference
In the section on the environment1 we discussed the concept of environment variables. We

also mentioned that there are usually a large number of environment variables that are
created centrally in /etc/profile . There are a number of these that have a predefined
meaning in the Bourne Shell. They are not set automatically, mind, but they have meaning
when they are set.
On most systems there are far more predefined variables than we list here. And some of
these will mean something to your shell (most shells have more options than the Bourne
Shell). Check your shell’s documentation for a listing. The ones below are meaningful to
the Bourne Shell and are usually also recognized by other shells.
Bourne Shell environment variables

Variable Meanings
HOME The user’s home directory. Set automatically at login from the user’s
login directory in the password file
PATH The default search path for executables.
CDPATH The search path used with the cd builtin, to allow for shortcuts.
LANG The directory for internationalization files, used by localizable pro-
grams.
MAIL The name of a mail file, that will be checked for the arrival of new
mail.
MAILCHECK The frequency in seconds that the shell checks for the arrival of mail.
MAILPATH A colon “:” separated list of file names, for the shell to check for in-
coming mail.
PS1 The control string for your prompt, which defaults to “$ ”, unless you
are the superuser, in which case it defaults to “# ”.
PS2 The control string for your secondary prompt, which defaults to “> ”.
The secondary prompt is what you see when you break a command
over more than one line.
PS4 The character string you see before the output of an execution trace
(set -x); defaults to “+ ”.
IFS Input Field Separators. Basically the characters the shell considers to
be whitespace. Normally set to 〈space〉, 〈tab〉, and 〈newline〉.
TERM The terminal type, for use by the shell.
119
13 Contributors
Edits User
1 ABCD1
16 Adrignola2
1 Albmont3
5 Avicennasis4
1 Aya5
1 Az15686
189 BenTels7
3 Dirk Hünniger8
1 Eric1199
1 Geocachernemesis10
1 Guanabot˜enwikibooks11
1 Guanaco12
3 Hagindaz13
1 JesseW14
10 Jguk15
1 Jomegat16
20 Kernigh17
17 Krischik18
1 Minderaser19
1 Mjbmrbot20
1 Monobi21
1 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:ABCD
2 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Adrignola
3 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Albmont
4 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Avicennasis
5 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Aya
6 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Az1568
7 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:BenTels
8 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Dirk_H%25C3%25BCnniger
9 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Eric119
10 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Geocachernemesis
11 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Guanabot~enwikibooks
12 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Guanaco
13 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Hagindaz
14 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:JesseW
15 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Jguk
16 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Jomegat
17 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh
18 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Krischik
19 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Minderaser
20 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Mjbmrbot
21 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Monobi
121
Contributors
3 Sigma 722
4 Thenub31423
2 Webaware24
2 Xania25
22 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Sigma_7
23 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Thenub314
24 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Webaware
25 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Xania
122
List of Figures
• GFDL: Gnu Free Documentation License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.

html
• cc-by-sa-3.0: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
• cc-by-2.0: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/2.0/
org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
• GPL: GNU General Public License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
• LGPL: GNU Lesser General Public License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.
html
• PD: This image is in the public domain.
• ATTR: The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose,
provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative
work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted.
• EURO: This is the common (reverse) face of a euro coin. The copyright on the design
of the common face of the euro coins belongs to the European Commission. Authorised
is reproduction in a format without relief (drawings, paintings, films) provided they
are not detrimental to the image of the euro.
• LFK: Lizenz Freie Kunst. http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/de
• CFR: Copyright free use.
123
List of Figures
• EPL: Eclipse Public License. http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/epl-v10.

php
Copies of the GPL, the LGPL as well as a GFDL are included in chapter Licenses26 . Please
note that images in the public domain do not require attribution. You may click on the
image numbers in the following table to open the webpage of the images in your webbrower.
124
List of Figures
125
14 Licenses
14.1 GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

Version 3, 29 June 2007 The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equiv- your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to no-
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Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/> work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Re- after the cessation.
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Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
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The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked public at no charge under subsection 6d. and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the
and other kinds of works. subprograms that the work is specifically designed to require, such as notice.
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The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed programs and other parts of the work. from the Corresponding Source as a System Library, need not be in- Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the
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The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorpora- Copies.
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All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copy- particular product received by a particular user, “normally used” refers a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work oc-
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Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have
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requirements apply either way. 8. Termination.
(2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at be available to you under applicable patent law. 12. No Surrender of
The “System Libraries” of an executable work include anything, other no charge. * c) Convey individual copies of the object code with a Others’ Freedom.
than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of copy of the written offer to provide the Corresponding Source. This You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major alternative is allowed only occasionally and noncommercially, and only provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement
Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that if you received the object code with such an offer, in accord with sub- modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do
Major Component, or to implement a Standard Interface for which an section 6b. * d) Convey the object code by offering access from a this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot con-
implementation is available to the public in source code form. A “Ma- designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to paragraph of section 11). vey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations
jor Component”, in this context, means a major essential component the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a con-
(kernel, window system, and so on) of the specific operating system (if no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corre- However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license sequence you may not convey it at all. For example, if you agree to
any) on which the executable work runs, or a compiler used to produce sponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, un- terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from
the work, or an object code interpreter used to run it. object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a less and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates those to whom you convey the Program, the only way you could satisfy
both those terms and this License would be to refrain entirely from Later license versions may give you additional or different permissions. If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided above You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
conveying the Program. 13. Use with the GNU Affero General Public However, no additional obligations are imposed on any author or copy- cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms, reviewing along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
License. right holder as a result of your choosing to follow a later version. 15. courts shall apply local law that most closely approximates an abso-
Disclaimer of Warranty. lute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Program, unless a
warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have permis- in return for a fee. mail.
sion to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed under
version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a single com- THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EX-
TENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS How to Apply These Terms If the program does terminal interaction, make it output a short notice
bined work, and to convey the resulting work. The terms of this Li-
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLD- to Your New Programs like this when it starts in an interactive mode:
cense will continue to apply to the part which is the covered work, but
the special requirements of the GNU Affero General Public License, ERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM
section 13, concerning interaction through a network will apply to the “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EX- If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest <program> Copyright (C) <year> <name of author> This program
combination as such. 14. Revised Versions of this License. PRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type ‘show
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these w’. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK terms. certain conditions; type ‘show c’ for details.
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new ver- AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PRO-
sions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new GRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DE-
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to
versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ FECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SER- The hypothetical commands ‘show w’ and ‘show c’ should show the
attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively state the
in detail to address new problems or concerns. VICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 16. Limitation of Liability. appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, your pro-
exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the “copyright”
line and a pointer to where the full notice is found. gram’s commands might be different; for a GUI interface, you would
use an “about box”.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Pub- IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR
<one line to give the program’s name and a brief idea of what it does.>
lic License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or
Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if nec-
of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU essary. For more information on this, and how to apply and follow the
FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCI- This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by GNU GPL, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free DENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF
THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at
Software Foundation. your option) any later version.
BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING REN- The GNU General Public License does not permit incorporating your
DERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine
If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPER- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy’s public ATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the
statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR- GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License. But first,
choose that version for the Program. OF SUCH DAMAGES. 17. Interpretation of Sections 15 and 16. POSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. please read <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html>.
14.2 GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008 following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title. 9. TERMI-
stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as ”Acknowl- part of the section titles. * M. Delete any section Entitled ”Endorse- NATION
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, edgements”, ”Dedications”, ”Endorsements”, or ”History”.) To ”Preserve ments”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
Inc. <http://fsf.org/> the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that * N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled ”Endorsements” You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document
it remains a section ”Entitled XYZ” according to this definition. or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section. * O. Preserve any except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt oth-
Warranty Disclaimers. erwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed. 0. PREAMBLE The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice automatically terminate your rights under this License.
which states that this License applies to the Document. These War- If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appen-
ranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this dices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other impli- from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, un-
functional and useful document ”free” in the sense of freedom: to as- cation that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and has no these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of less and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates
sure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or effect on the meaning of this License. 2. VERBATIM COPYING Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to no-
without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Sec-
must be distinct from any other section titles. tify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days
ondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to
get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either after the cessation.
modifications made by others. commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the You may add a section Entitled ”Endorsements”, provided it con-
copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies tains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated
to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no parties—for example, statements of peer review or that the text has permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by
This License is a kind of ”copyleft”, which means that derivative works other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice
of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It com- technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copy- standard. of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder,
plements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license ing of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept
designed for free software. and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the
compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough notice.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text,
number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free
of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the
software, because free software needs free documentation: a free pro- You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under
gram should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the you may publicly display copies. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently
software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals;
already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does
it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on not give you any rights to use it. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS
whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this Li-
printed covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and the behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, LICENSE
cense principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: one.
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions
Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such
back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this Li-
that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but
the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title cense give permission to use their names for publicity for or to as-
be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See
with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add sert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version. 5. COMBINING
world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited DOCUMENTS
under the conditions stated herein. The ”Document”, below, refers to to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and
any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.
is addressed as ”you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or respects. You may combine the Document with other documents released under If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this
distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law. this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified License ”or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of
versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the In- following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, variant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list
A ”Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the
you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license
Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifica- Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version
actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages. notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
tions and/or translated into another language. number of this License, you may choose any version ever published
(not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this License
A ”Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter sec- The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and
more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transpar- can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a version
tion of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single
ent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.
the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s overall copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name
copy a computer-network location from which the general network- 11. RELICENSING
subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by
using public has access to download using public-standard network
directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original au-
protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added
a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any thor or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. ”Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or ”MMC Site”) means any
material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably pru-
mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connec- Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also
dent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity,
tion with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, Sections in the license notice of the combined work. provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public
to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the
philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them. stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A ”Massive
an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled ”History” Multiauthor Collaboration” (or ”MMC”) contained in the site means
edition to the public. in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled ”His- any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.
The ”Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles
are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that tory”; likewise combine any sections Entitled ”Acknowledgements”, and
says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does any sections Entitled ”Dedications”. You must delete all sections En- ”CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the
not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be titled ”Endorsements”. 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-
Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to
designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco,
Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections Document. 4. MODIFICATIONS You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other doc- California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published
then there are none. uments released under this License, and replace the individual copies by that same organization.
of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document un-
The ”Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this ”Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or
der the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release
Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other in part, as part of another Document.
the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified
the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may respects.
Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution
be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words. and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy An MMC is ”eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License,
of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version: You may extract a single document from such a collection, and dis- and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere
A ”Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable tribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in
copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the * A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title dis- of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and
general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightfor- tinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document. 7. (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.
wardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in
editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic the original publisher of that version gives permission. * B. List on A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August
translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing. ADDENDUM:
A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together distribution medium, is called an ”aggregate” if the copyright resulting How to use this License for your documents
or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage sub- with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the com-
sequent modification by readers is not Transparent. An image format principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you pilation’s users beyond what the individual works permit. When the
is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy
from this requirement. * C. State on the Title page the name of the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to
that is not ”Transparent” is called ”Opaque”. of the License in the document and put the following copyright and
publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher. * D. Preserve the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative
license notices just after the title page:
all the copyright notices of the Document. * E. Add an appropriate works of the Document.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright
ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input for- notices. * F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license Copyright (C) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy,
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
mat, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard- notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half of the
conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below. Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version pub-
entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on cov- lished by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections,
modification. Examples of transparent image formats include PNG, * G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections ers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic
XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can and required Cover Texts given in the Document’s license notice. * no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license
equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise is included in the section entitled ”GNU Free Documentation License”.
be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or H. Include an unaltered copy of this License. * I. Preserve the section they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally Entitled ”History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at 8. TRANSLATION
available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF pro- least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Ver- If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover
duced by some word processors for output purposes only. sion as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled ”History” Texts, replace the ”with … Texts.” line with this:
in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and pub- Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute
lisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing
The ”Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the
such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence. * Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all
License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invari- LIST.
which do not have any title page as such, ”Title Page” means the text public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the
network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was ant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the
near the most prominent appearance of the work’s title, preceding the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, pro- If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other
beginning of the body of the text. based on. These may be placed in the ”History” section. You may omit
a network location for a work that was published at least four years vided that you also include the original English version of this License combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the sit-
before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a uation.
The ”publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of refers to gives permission. * K. For any section Entitled ”Acknowledge- disagreement between the translation and the original version of this
the Document to the public. ments” or ”Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail. If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we
in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor ac- recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of
A section ”Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document knowledgements and/or dedications given therein. * L. Preserve all If a section in the Document is Entitled ”Acknowledgements”, ”Dedi- free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to per-
whose title either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and cations”, or ”History”, the requirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title mit their use in free software.
14.3 GNU Lesser General Public License
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE The “Corresponding Application Code” for a Combined Work means You may convey a Combined Work under terms of your choice that, You may place library facilities that are a work based on the Library
the object code and/or source code for the Application, including any taken together, effectively do not restrict modification of the portions side by side in a single library together with other library facilities that
Version 3, 29 June 2007 data and utility programs needed for reproducing the Combined Work of the Library contained in the Combined Work and reverse engineer- are not Applications and are not covered by this License, and convey
from the Application, but excluding the System Libraries of the Com- ing for debugging such modifications, if you also do each of the follow- such a combined library under terms of your choice, if you do both of
bined Work. 1. Exception to Section 3 of the GNU GPL. ing: the following:
Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/>
You may convey a covered work under sections 3 and 4 of this License * a) Accompany the combined library with a copy of the same work
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this without being bound by section 3 of the GNU GPL. 2. Conveying * a) Give prominent notice with each copy of the Combined Work
license document, but changing it is not allowed. that the Library is used in it and that the Library and its use are based on the Library, uncombined with any other library facilities,
Modified Versions. conveyed under the terms of this License. * b) Give prominent no-
covered by this License. * b) Accompany the Combined Work with a
copy of the GNU GPL and this license document. * c) For a Com- tice with the combined library that part of it is a work based on the
This version of the GNU Lesser General Public License incorporates If you modify a copy of the Library, and, in your modifications, a fa- Library, and explaining where to find the accompanying uncombined
the terms and conditions of version 3 of the GNU General Public Li- bined Work that displays copyright notices during execution, include
cility refers to a function or data to be supplied by an Application that the copyright notice for the Library among these notices, as well as a form of the same work.
cense, supplemented by the additional permissions listed below. 0. uses the facility (other than as an argument passed when the facility
Additional Definitions. reference directing the user to the copies of the GNU GPL and this
is invoked), then you may convey a copy of the modified version: license document. * d) Do one of the following: o 0) Convey the 6. Revised Versions of the GNU Lesser General Public License.
Minimal Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, and
As used herein, “this License” refers to version 3 of the GNU Lesser * a) under this License, provided that you make a good faith effort to the Corresponding Application Code in a form suitable for, and under
General Public License, and the “GNU GPL” refers to version 3 of the ensure that, in the event an Application does not supply the function terms that permit, the user to recombine or relink the Application The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new ver-
GNU General Public License. or data, the facility still operates, and performs whatever part of its with a modified version of the Linked Version to produce a modified sions of the GNU Lesser General Public License from time to time.
purpose remains meaningful, or * b) under the GNU GPL, with none Combined Work, in the manner specified by section 6 of the GNU Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but
“The Library” refers to a covered work governed by this License, other of the additional permissions of this License applicable to that copy. GPL for conveying Corresponding Source. o 1) Use a suitable shared may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
than an Application or a Combined Work as defined below. library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism
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Bourne Shell Scripting

6 Files and streams 67

8 Debugging and signal handling 87

9.5 Simple playlist frontend for GStreamer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

10 Quick Reference 109

11 Command Reference 115

12 Environment reference 119

List of Figures 123

1.1 Bourne shell and other Unix command shells

1.1.1 How it all got started...

1.1.2 ...And how it ended up

1.1.3 It’s Bourne Shell, but not as we know it....

1.2 Why Bourne Shell

2.1 The easy way: the interactive session

2.1.1 Taking another look at what you’ve probably already seen

The admin says: everybody, STOP TRYING TO CRASH THE SYSTEM

or even something as simple as

2.1.2 Using the shell in interactive mode

2.1.3 A useful tidbit

2.2 The only slightly less easy way: the script

2.2.1 The shell script

2.2.2 Running a shell script

Running a command in a new shell

2.2.3 Running a shell script the other way

Making MyScript executable

Running a command in a new shell

2.3 A little bit about Unix and multiprocessing

2.3.1 Why you want to know about multiprocessing

2.3.2 What does what

Way of running Runs as

Shell non-interactive mode child process

2.3.3 A useful thing to know: background processes

3.1 The Environments

3.1.1 The command execution environment

The complete list of resources included in the shell’s CEE is:

The ’set’ command

3.1.2 The environment and environment variables

Environment variables are more ﬂexible than you thought...

3.1.3 Diﬀerent kinds of environment variables

Assigning a simple value to a variable

Assigning a simple value to a variable

Assigning a simple value to a variable

Assigning a combined value to a variable

$ PS1= "`whoami`@`hostname -s` `pwd` \$ "

WithArgs.sh: A script that uses command-line arguments

And a call to this script like this:

$ WithArgs.sh Hello World

Calling the script with more arguments

$ WithArgs.sh Hello World Mouse Cheese

$ WithArgs.sh 'Hello World' 'Mouse Cheese'

10 Chapter 5.2.5 on page 62

Other, special variables

11 Chapter 5.1.3 on page 53

3.1.4 Exporting variables to a subprocess

We’ve mentioned it a couple of times before: Unix is a multi-user, multiprocessing operating

Starting a new shell from the shell

13 Chapter 5.2.5 on page 62

Exported and non-exported variables

$ exit Quitting the inner shell

3.1.5 Your proﬁle

A basic (but typical) $HOME/.proﬁle

3.2 Multitasking and job control

3.2.1 Some terminology